"ON  MY  KEEPING 
AND  IN   THEIRS 


.r* 


"ON  MY  KEEPING" 
AND  IN  THEIRS 


A   RECORD   OF  EXPERIENCES 
ON   THE   RUN,"    IN   DERRY   GAOE,    AND   IN 
BAIXYKINLAR   INTERNMENT  CAMP 

By 

LOUIS  J.   WALSH 

Author  of  "The  Yarns  of  a  Country  Attorney" 
"  The  Next  Time,"  etc. 


(Saying  cf  an  old  Ulster  fyomaal 


S^ 


NEW    YORK: 
P.   J.    KENEDY  cS^   SONS 

44    BARCLAY    STREET 
1922 

BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBUAK1T 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


PRINTED  AT 

ctie  caUdoc  puess 

85    TALBOT   STREET 
DUBLIN 
IRELAND 


CONTENTS 


Foreword 

chap. 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

V. 

VI. 

VII. 

VIII. 

IX. 

X. 

XI. 

XII. 

XIII. 

XIV. 

XV. 

XVI. 

XVII. 

XVIII. 

XIX. 


When  Day  Dreams  Come  True 
The  Mountainy  Man 

In  an  Ulster  Glen     

Dublin  during  the  Terror  . . . 
"In  Their  Keeping" 

Prison  Life       

Christmas  Day  in  Derry  Gaol 

b  allykinlar 

Camp  Conditions 

Some  Camp  Notables 

Our  Line  Captains 

A  Training  Camp 

Educational  Work  in  the  Camp 

The  Shootings 

The  Strike 

The  Fight  and  the  Peace 

Getting  in  our  Time 

Strategy  

Home 


Appendix 




u  u 


PAGE 

vii 

i 

5 

10 

17 
23 

29 

35 
4i 
47 
53 
62 

65 

70 

75 

82 

87 

93 

98 
103 
no 


FOREWORD. 

By    MRS.    CECIL    CHESTERTON, 


Mr.  Louis  Walsh — Irish  Nationalist,  Sinn 
Feiner  and  author  of  this  book — has  been  a  reader 
and  supporter  of  "  The  New  Witness  "  since  its 
foundation  by  Cecil  Chesterton  in  191 1 ;  and 
this  although  the  charge  against  him  by  the  British 
Government  included  his  possession  of  back 
numbers  of  the  paper,  which  in  Ireland  comes 
under  the  heading  of  seditious  literature.  This 
sympathy  between  an  English  paper  and  an  Irish 
patriot,  over  a  period  of  ten  years,  has  been 
possible  because  Mr.  Walsh  on  his  side  and 
"  The  New  Witness "  on  theirs  accepted  the 
fundamental  difference  in  their  point  of  view, 
thus  establishing  a  basis  of  mutual  comprehension. 
I  emphasise  this  aspect  oj  the  relationship, 
because,  it  seems  to  me,  that  the  keystone  to  the 
understanding  which  alone  can  bridge  the  gulf 
between  England  and  Ireland  lies  in  the  recognition 


vla  FOREWORD 

that  they  are  two  separate  countries,  inhabited 
by  different  peoples  with  divergent  traditions  and 
national  aspirations.  The  author's  inimitable 
story  of  the  English  sergeant  who  took  him  to 
prison,  in  the  friendliest  possible  way,  illustrates 
this  to  perfection.  It  happened  that  on  the  road 
to  Derry  Gaol  the  prisoner  stood  the  escort  a  meal, 
when  the  sergeant  in  charge  solved  the  Irish 
Question  in  the  most  complete  and  satisfactory 
fashion.  lie  broke  a  loaf  in  halves,  and  placing 
the  two  portions  a  short  distance  apart  remarked 
to  Mr.  Walsh  :  "  This  is  my  bloody  country  and 
that's  your  bloody  country,  and  they  have  both  to 
live  beside  each  other."  It  is  the  confusion  of 
ideas  that  is  responsible  for  nine-tenths  of  the 
injustice  of  this  world ;  and  what  the  English 
sergeant  intuitively  understood,  well-meaning  and 
muddle-headed  persons  of  the  middle  classes  still 
fail  to  comprehend.  Ignorance  of  history  and  a 
congenital  shrinking  from  self-examination  has 
reinforced  the  false  belief  that  the  interests  of 
Ireland  are  identical  with  those  of  England,  and 
that  a  demand  for  separate  existence  is  as 
ridiculous  as  a  plea  for  autonomy  from  York- 
shire ;  and  this  attitude  of  mind  has  been  exploited 
to  the  full  by  the  professional  politicians. 

It  needed  the  tragic  events  of  the  past  four  years 


FOREWORD  ix 

to  make  plain  the  fact  that  the  Irish  are  not  merely 
a  different  kind  of  English,  but  a  nation  as 
foreign  to  our  methods  of  thought  and  forms  of 
government  as  are  the  French  or  the  Italians. 
Even  now  the  legend  still  persists  in  relation  to 
what  is  called  the  Ulster  problem,  though,  as  the 
author  shows  us,  the  Protestant  population  of 
the  North,  leaving  aside  the  Orange  city,  share 
the  aspirations  of  their  Catholic  fellows.  They 
are  as  thoroughly  Irish  as  the  natives  of  Cork, 
and,  according  to  Mr.  Walsh,  far  more  humorous. 
A  native  of  Ulster,  the  author's  testimony  of 
Protestant  cohesion  to  the  national  ideal  is  of 
vital  importance  to  those  who  want  to  understand 
the  truth.  His  narrative  destroys  the  shibboleth 
current  for  so  many  years  in  England,  and 
elsewhere,  and  shows  clearly  and  irrefutably  that 
not  Ulster  but  Belfast  is  irreconcilable ;  the  one 
spot  in  Ireland  where  bigotry  outweighs 
nationalism. 

It  is  these  two  things  ivhich  make  Mr.  Walsh's 
book  so  valuable.  In  the  first  place  he  recognises 
that  it  is  the  English  politicians  and  not  the 
English  people  who  have  withheld  Ireland's 
independence.  Throughout  his  imprisonment,  and 
the  weary  months  passed  in  an  internment  camp, 
his  kindliness  for  English  folk  remained  unspoiled  ; 


X  FOREWORD 

not  all  the  petty  tyranny  of  malicious  and  ignorant 
young  subalterns,  not  all  the  harshness  of  camp 
life,   nor  the  sudden  horror   of  the  cold-blooded 
butchery  of  certain  of  his  fellow-prisoners,  could 
cloud  his  sense  of  justice,  dim  his  belief  that  in 
the   ultimate  the   Irish  people   and  the   English 
people  must,  be  friends.     In  the  second  place,  as 
I  have  said,  he  utterly  destroys  that  mischievous 
figment  of  the  imagination,  a  solid  North  definitely 
opposed  to  the  idea  of  Ireland  free  and  united. 
He  centres   our  attention  upon  Belfast,   not  by 
indictment  but  by  those  simple  and  most  touching 
glimpses  of  life  in  the  Ulster  towns  and  country- 
side, where  Protestants  and  Catholics  work  together, 
play  together  and  go  to  the  same  prison  for  the 
same  political  ideals.    It  is  worth  noting  in  this 
connection    that    Mr.    Louis    Walsh,    himself  a 
Catholic,  was  returned  to  the  County  Council  of 
Antrim  by  the  Protestant  vote,  and  that,  as  he 
tells   us,   a  large  proportion   of  his   clients   are 
Protestant  also. 

For  years  a  member  of  the  Nationalist  Party, 
Mr.  Walsh  joined  Sinn  Fein  following  the  Easter 
rising  of  1916.  When  the  history  of  the  last  decade 
comes  to  be  written  the  wholesale  executions 
following  on  that  tragic  week  must  be  recorded 
as  one  of  the  most  fatal  mistakes  England  has 


FOREWORD  xi 

made  in  Ireland.  The  number  of  lives  ended  on 
the  scaffold,  the  circumstances  of  their  death,  the 
knowledge  that  the  victims  had  gladly  paid  the 
price  of  patriotism  stirred  the  heart  of  every 
Irish  man  and  woman,  with  the  result  that  all 
over  the  country,  in  Ulster  as  elsewhere,  adherence 
to  Sinn  Fein  was  registered  by  thousands.  I  do 
not  think  it  has  ever  been  sufficiently  realised  in 
England,  or  America,  that  the  first  great  impetus 
in  favour  of  the  party,  pledged  to  secure  freedom 
for  Ireland,  was  the  result  of  England's  policy 
following  Easter  week,  and  it  is  no  small  part  of 
the  value  of  this  book  that  it  shows,  quietly  but 
with  deadly  effect,  that  each  step  the  British 
Government  has  taken  in  the  repression  of  Sinn 
Fein  has  evoked  a  closer  loyalty ;  that  every 
attempt  at  the  destruction  of  Irish  Nationalism  has 
made  the  fires  of  patriotism  burn  clearer. 

The  case  of  Mr.  Walsh  is  typical  of  very  many 
others.  A  peace  fid,  kindly  man,  dwelling  in 
friendship  with  Protestants  and  Catholics  alike, 
he  was  chased  out  of  his  home  to  take  refuge 
among  the  hills,  a  preliminary  raid  having 
warned  him  of  what  he  might  expect.  What 
happened  to  him  in  the  weeks  that  followed  he 
tells  with  the  simplicity  and  restraint  that  marks 
fine  writing.    The  peasants  gave  him  of  their  best  ; 


XU  FOBEWOED 

he  sat  with  "  bright-eyed  mountainy  men,  keen, 
big-hearted,  strong  in  body,  and  clean  in  mind/' 
They  talked  to  him  with  a  strange  light  in  their 
eyes  and  sometimes  with  a  husky  note  in  their 
voices,  of  Ireland  and  her  long-suffering.  The 
record  of  the  days  and  nights  that  followed  makes 
one  understand  that  there  is  no  price  too  high  for 
an  Irishman  to  pay  for  Dark  Rosaleen,  and  that 
the  heavier  the  hand  of  the  oppressor  the  more 
valiant  the  resistance  of  the  oppressed. 

The  distinction  the  author  draws  between  the 
conduct  of  the  military  and  the  Black- and-Tans 
is  most  important.  He  shows  that,  in  the  main, 
British  army  officers  preserved  the  consideration 
due  to  prisoners  of  war.  Indeed  there  seems  to 
have  been  no  confusion  in  the  minds  of  the 
commandants  of  the  internment  camps  as  to  the 
status  of  the  men  under  their  charge.  The 
politicians  insisted  that  members  of  the  Irish 
Republican  Army  were  rebels  unable  to  claim 
protection  under  international  military  law.  The 
officers  at  Ballykinlar  had  no  such  delusions. 
The  author  tells  how  Colonel  Hely -Hutchinson, 
known  to  the  prisoners  as  "  Play-the-Game,*' 
always  informed  newcomers  that  he  understood 
they  were  soldiers  and  intended  to  deal  with  them 
as  such,  and  to  treat  them  as  prisoners  of  war. 


FOREWORD  xili 

"  It  is^my  wish  that  your  time  here  should  be  as 
pleasant  as  possible  in  the  circumstances  ;  if  you 
play  the  game  with  me  I'll  play  the  game  with  you." 
This  effectively  answers  the  politicians'  argument  ; 
undoubtedly  the  attitude  of  the  British  army 
officer  influenced  the  final  recognition  of  the  I.R.A. 
under  the  terms  of  the  truce. 

Of  the  months  he  spent  in  the  internment  camp 
the  author  writes  with  invincible  courage  and 
humour.  The  native  genius  of  the  Irish  for  making 
capital  out  of  England's  mistakes  enabled  the  Irish 
Republican  Army  to  use  Ballykinlar  as  a  training 
ground  for  recruits.  The  prisoners  were  drilled 
every  morning  by  one  of  their  own  officers,  and 
went  through  evolutions  for  which  they  would  have- 
got  two  years'  imprisonment  outside  the  wires. 
Finally  the  authorities  woke  up,  and  drill  was 
prohibited.  This  however  did  not  prevent  the 
teaching  of  the  various  technical  subjects  that 
helped  to  make  our  men  more  efficient  soldiers. 
Apart  from  military  training  propaganda  was 
carried  on  effectively  among  those  prisoners  not 
yet  attached  to  Sinn  Fein,  and  as  the  author  says, 
hardly  one  of  them  but  were  converted  during  their 
stay.  "  And  the  grand  thing  about  it  was  that 
the  British  Treasury  paid  for  it  all." 

All  that  the  author  has  to  tell  us  of  the  heroism 


XIV  FOREWORD 


of  the  Irish  people  under  the  British  army  of 
occupation  is  of  historic  significance — as  showing 
the  impossibility  of  crushing  the  soul  of  a  people 
by  brute  force.  His  adventures  have  that  touch  of 
romance  and  sense  of  breathless  escape  which  we 
find  in  those  tales  of  the  Middle  Ages,  where 
Christian  knights  fought  their  way  to  freedom 
through  barbarian  hordes.  And  the  same  chivalry, 
the  same  quiet  faith  in  the  eternal  justice  which 
armed  the  old  heroes  for  their  fight  animates  the 
Irish  of  to-day.  For  Mr.  Louis  Walsh,  quiet 
country  solicitor  as  he  describes  himself,  shares 
with  the  men  who  have  perished  on  the  scaffold, 
the  soldiers  who  have  fallen  under  British  bullets, 
that  spirit  of  high  heroism  which  cannot  be 
defeated.  And  with  that  heroism  goes  a  kindliness 
of  heart,  a  tender  charity  which  looking  beyond 
the  bloodshed  of  the  past,  sees  in  the  future  a  free 
Ireland,  living  side  by  side  with  a  free  England, 
united  by  the  good-will  of  their  separate  peoples. 
It  is  a  remarkable  volume,  and  though  it  is  hard 
reading  for  the  English  man  or  woman  conscious 
of  the  horrors  done  in  their  country* s  name,  it  is 
written  with  so  complete  an  absence  of  ill-feeling 
that  the  most  prejudiced  must  realise  its  candour. 
The  simple  eloquence  of  the  story,  the  sudden 
beauty  of  those  passages  wherein  we  see  the  little 


FOREWORD  XV 

homes  scattered  among  the  Antrim  hills  ;  fugitive 
figures  stealing  through  the  mists  at  night,  out- 
lawed  and  hunted  from  their  own  firesides,  is 
almost  unbearably  poignant.  I  have  always  been 
a  fierce  fighter  for  Ireland's  freedom,  realising  to 
the  quick  the  long  tales  of  her  wrongs,  but  I  did 
not,  nay,  I  could  not  understand  all  that  it  means 
to  live  under  an  alien  rule  until  I  read  On  My 
Keeping.  /  could  wish  that  everyone  of  Ireland's 
friends — and  Ireland's  enemies  as  well — would 
read  it  also. 


"ON    MY   KEEPING." 


CHAPTER    I. 

WHEN    DAY    DREAMS     COME    TRUE. 

Aix  my  life  I  have  loved  and  yearned  for  the  mountains 
and  wished  to  wander  over  them  as  it  pleased  me,  without 
thought  of  time  or  tide.  The  valley  which  held  my  child- 
hood's home  and  whither  I  have  now  returned  is  begirt 
with  blue  hills  ;  and  as  a  child  it  was  my  fond  ambition 
to  climb  each  distant  peak  and  gaze  therefrom  at  the  great 
outside  world  and  see  the  wonders  of  the  mysterious  Beyond. 
But  school  and  examinations  and  the  routine  of  little  duties 
cramped  my  boyhood,  and  before  I  knew  I  was  tied  to 
a  desk  in  a  musty  office  ;  and  the  years  crept  on  and  the 
hilltops  beckoned  me  in  vain.  I  had  entered  on  the  dreary 
middle  years,  and  had,  perforce,  to  put  away  from  me 
many  of  my  dearest  dreams.  I  was  becoming  prudent, 
practical ;  and  the  costs-hunger  began  to  corrode  my 
poor  attorney  heart.  Then,  one  September  morning,  came 
the  great  change.  I  shed  the  years  as  if  they  had  been 
but  a  coat  of  feathers,  and  my  day  dreams  began  to  come 
true. 

It  was  all  due  to  David  Iyloyd  George  and  Viscount 
French  and  Sir  Neville  Macready  and  Sir  Hamar  Greenwood. 
They  had  determined  to  present  Parliament,  when  it  met 
on  October  19th,  1920,  with  the  accomplished  fact  in 
Ireland  of  "  a  broken  movement  and  a  cowed  country  "  ; 


-AND   IN   THEIRS 

and  they  did  me  the  honour  of  thinking  that  Ireland  would 
not  be  finally  conquered  whilst  even  poor,  insignificant  I 
was  left  to  bleat  my  pettifogging  plea  for  Irish  freedom. 
So  their  soldiers  had  raided  my  office  that  morning,  and  I, 
having  been  informed  of  what  was  taking  place  and  realising 
what  it  all  meant,  felt  myself  at  last  free  to  turn,  without 
any  qualms  of  conscience  for  my  unfulfilled  tasks,  to  the 
hills  I  loved.  I  had  my  anxieties,  to  be  sure,  for  I  have 
many  responsibilities  ;  but  I  did  not  fear,  knowing  what 
constant  intercession  is  made  for  me  from  the  hearts  of 
friends  and  dear  ones,  to  whom  the  good  God  who  loves 
the  pure  of  soul  must  needs  hearken  ;  and  it  was  sweet 
to  suffer  even  a  little  for  Ireland,  knowing,  as  the  martyr 
of  Brixton  has  put  it,  that  it  is  the  nation  that  can  endure 
most  that  will  win  in  this  struggle.  So  I  went  forth  that 
harvest  day  with  a  strange  joy  at  my  heart,  and  gloried 
in  the  bright  sunshine  and  in  all  the  beauty  of  the  life  and 
country  around  me.  I  sat  by  babbling  brooks  that  sang  for 
me  again  the  songs  of  my  childhood  ;  gathered  nuts  in  shady 
groves,  with  all  the  zest  of  thirty  golden  years  ago  ;  lay 
among  the  heather  and  felt  my  heart  swell  with  pride 
and  love  at  the  sight  of  the  beauteous  valley,  bedecked 
in  all  the  golden  glory  of  the  ripened  corn  and  gemmed 
with  white- washed  homesteads,  that  spread  itself  out 
below  ;  sat  with  bright-eyed  mountainy  men,  keen,  big- 
hearted,  strong  in  body  and  clean  in  mind,  who  told  me 
stories  of  old  days  on  those  hills  and  of  other  men  who, 
too,  had  been  "  on  their  keeping  "  on  them,  and  of  the 
adventures  of  their  own  simple  fives — the  great  journeys 
they  had  taken  and  the  wondrous  sights  they  had  seen  at 
sheep  fairs  "  away  in  Donegal  "  or  in  distant  Tyrone  or 
in  the  glens  of  Antrim — and  talked  to  me,  with  a  strange 
light  in  their  eyes  and  sometimes  with  a  husky  note  in  their 
voices,  of  Ireland  and  her  long  sufferings  and  of  the  wicked- 


WHEN   DAY   DREAMS    COME   TRUE  3 

ness  of  her  oppressors  and  the  undying  hope  of  the  Gael. 
No  need  for  me  to  conceal  the  cause  of  my  journey  ;  for 
none  of  these  people  but  would  have  laid  down  his  life 
rather  than  betray  me.  I  was  no  longer  the  commonplace 
attorney,  whom  they  were  wont  to  consult  about  their 
quarrels  and  difficulties,  and  whose  bills  of  cost  made  such- 
distressful  reading.  The  enemy  had  struck  at  me  and  I 
had  become  exalted  in  their  eyes  in  consequence.  I  had 
joined — even  poor,  insignificant,  selfish  me  ! — the  long 
line  of  those  who  had  worked  and  suffered  for  Ireland  ; 
and  from  the  warm  handclasp  of  every  rough,  tnanty  hand, 
and  the  fervent  "  God  and  His  Blessed  Mother  protect 
you  !  "  that  the  women  spoke,  I  knew  that,  all  unworthy 
though  I  was,  I  was  identified  in  these  people's  eyes  with 
the  men  of  '98,  and  '48  and  '67  and  '16,  who  had  written 
.their  names  in  letters  of  gold  on  the  dark  pages  of  Ireland's 
history. 

Every  door  was  open  to  me,  because  for  the  moment  I 
stood  for  Ireland  and  against  her  oppressors  ;  and  when 
I  had  reached  the  hospitable  homestead  where  I  had  made 
up  my  mind  I  would  be  safest  from  my  pursuers  I  got  a 
welcome  that  a  king  might  have  envied.  The  best  room 
was  made  ready  for  me,  and  the  biggest  possible  fire  piled 
on  the  wide  hearth,  and  the  good  wife  spared  herself  no 
trouble  that  her  generous  heart  could  suggest  to  make  me 
comfortable.  And  what  a  night  of  it  we  had  !  The  man 
of  the  house  sang  and  recited  his  own  songs  and  poems, 
for  he  was  a  song  maker,  and  a  grand  string  of  ballads  he 
had  to  his  credit.,  rich  in  the  humour  of  the  countryside, 
and  redolent  of  its  beauty,  and  inspired  by  its  memories 
and  traditions  ;  and  I  recited  "  The  Man  from  God  Knows 
Where,"  and  a  neighbour  lad  sang  songs. 

We  made  merry,  as  every  normal  gathering  of  Irish  people 
always  do.    We  told  each  other  stories  of  the  "  characters  " 


4  "  ON   MY   KEEPING  " — AND   IN   THEIRS 

of  the  district ;  repeated  witticisms,  and  recounted  all  sorts 
of  funny  experiences.  The  man  of  the  house  performed 
various  feats  of  skill  for  our  edification,  and  made  the  tears 
of  happy  laughter  run  down  our  cheeks  with  his  humour 
and  his  comical  description  of  men  and  things.  As  the 
smoky  rafters  of  the  old  kitchen  rang  with  our  merriment 
I  knew  that  there  was  none  of  us — not  even  the  hunted 
man,  though  he  did  not  know  what  fate  was  in  store  for 
him — but  was  a  great  deal  happier  that  night  than  was 
I/loyd  George,  the  Prime  Minister  of  England. 

Then  we  all  knelt  down,  and  the  man  of  the  house  gave 
out  the  Rosary,  and  the  good  woman  led  with  the  first 
decade,  and  we  all  took  ours  in  our  turn.  And  we  prayed 
that  God  and  His  Blessed  Mother  might  protect  us  and  our 
homes  and  families,  and  for  the  suffering  souls,  especially 
those  near  and  dear  to  us,  and  for  poor  Ireland  that  God 
might  shorten  the  arm  of  the  oppressor,  and  for  all  who 
were  suffering  for  her,  and  for  the  men  on  hunger  strike, 
and  for  all  imprisoned  Irishmen.  Later  on,  when  I  awakened 
in  the  middle  of  the  night,  I  thought  I  heard  a  step  outside. 
I  went  to  the  little  window  and  peeped  out  into  the  moon- 
light, and  I  saw  the  figures  of  three  or  four  young  men. 
Then  I  knew  that  the  lads,  unknown  to  me,  were  keeping 
guard  whilst  I  slept,  lest  the  military  should  come  upon 
me  by  surprise. 

It  was  a  symbol.  For  the  moment  I  represented  in  a  small 
way  in  that  area  the  centuries'  long  struggle  against  the 
oppressor ;  and  so  these  young  men,  with  the  hard  day's 
work  of  the  Irish  peasant  behind  them  and  as  hard  a  day's 
work  before  them,  had  come  unasked  to  spend  that  weary 
vigil  on  the  mountain  side  to  testify  their  love  for  their 
"  Dark  Rosaleen."  That  is  the  spirit  found  everywhere 
and  in  every  age  and  class  in  the  country  that  makes  Ireland 
unconquerable. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    MOUNTAINY    MAN. 

There  were  rumours  that  the  enemy  were  upon  my  track, 
and  so  I  deemed  it  wiser  to  move  into  another  district. 
A  patriotic  mountainy  man,  who  had  driven  and  herded 
sheep  all  over  the  surrounding  hills  and  knew  every  glen 
and  pass  and  summit  that  they  held,  undertook  to  be  my 
guide,  and  on  a  bright  September  afternoon  we  set  forth. 
The  tear-drops  glistened  in  the  eyes  of  the  kindly  woman 
of  the  house  as  she  bade  us  good-bye.  She  sprinkled  us 
with  holy  water  and  gave  us  into  the  protection  of  the  Mother 
of  God ;  and  the  good  man  took  off  his  boots  and 
accompanied  us  for  two  or  three  miles  across  the  heath 
to  the  summit  of  the  first  hill  we  had  to  cross. 

It  was  another  glorious  day,  and  again  and  again  we 
stopped  to  feast  our  eyes  on  the  fair  plains  of  Derry  that 
stretched  for  miles  below  us,  and  the  lovely  valley  of  the 
Bann,  and  "  the  blue  hill  of  Antrim  "  that  rimmed  the 
horizon.  One  by  one  my  guide  pointed  out  to  me  the 
places  I  knew  so  well,  but  which  were  obscured  for  me 
by  the   unfamiliar  distance   from  which   I   viewed   them. 

They  were  all  rich  in  memories  and  endeared  to  me  by 
a  hundred  traditions,  stories  and  associations  of  my  boy- 
hood. There  were  distant  Slemish  on  which  holy  Patrick 
herded  the  swine  ;  and  Dunglady  Fort  round  which  many 
a  battle  had  waged  in  the  olden  time  ;  and  "  bonny,  bonny 
Slieve  Galleon's  braes"  ;  and  "  Knockloughrim  Planting"  ; 
and  "  the  three  spires  of  Magherafelt,"  that  to  my  childish 

5 


6  ON   MY   KEEPING     — AND   IN   THEIRS 

mind  used  to  seem  so  wondrous  and  far-away  ;  and  the 
Poplars  of   Tobermore  ;   and  the  Cross   of   Ballynascreen. 

There,  too,  was  the  fair  valley  of  the  Moyola,  along  whose 
banks  was  "  Shillgrove  "  ;  and  as  we  lay  in  the  heather 
and  my  guide  pointed  out  to  me  where  the  thickly  wooded 
demesne  was,  I  saw  myself  for  a  fleeting  moment  a  wide- 
eyed  little  listener,  awed  and  somewhat  frightened  at  the 
Paganism  of  the  incident  but  with  a  keen  sense  of  the  magni- 
ficence of  the  drama  involved,  as  my  old  nurse  told  me  the 
story  of  one  of  the  old  landlords  who  had  dwelt  in  the 
place,  and  how  when  the  darkness  of  death  began  to  shade  his 
eyes  he  had  asked  to  be  carried  to  the  window,  and  then 
have  taken  his  last,  long,  lingering  look  at  the  lovely  lawn, 
at  the  bottom  of  which  the  river  glided  through  a  line  of 
stately  trees,  he  had  exclaimed  :  "Oh  Shillgrove,  Shill- 
grove !  How  can  I  leave  you  ?  What  are  the  glories  of 
Heaven  to  the  beauties  of  Shillgrove  I  " 

Dearer  than  all  was  the  village  of  my  childhood.  Only 
its  dim  outlines  showed  through  the  haze  ;  but  every  house 
and  stone  and  step,  illumined  by  the  light  of  love  and 
memory,  stood  clear  before  my  mind's  eye.  There  were  the 
ruined  church  where  St.  Lurach  was  buried,  with  all  the 
stories  that  clung  to  its  ivy-clad  walls ;  and  the  tree  on  which 
Wattie  Graham,  the  young  Presbyterian  patriot  who  had 
headed  the  local  "  United  Men  "  in  '98  had  been  hanged  ; 
and  the  houses  in  which  had  dwelt  so  many  dear  friends 
of  the  past.  Many  of  the  young  ones,  with  whom  I  bad 
played  and  gone  to  school  and  gathered  blackberries  and 
danced  and  made  merry,  were  dead  or  in  distant  lands  ; 
and  most  of  the  older  generation,  whose  wisdom  and  humour 
and  wealth  of  story  I  had  delighted  to  listen  to  as  I  walked 
beside  my  father  on  a  Sunday  morning  to  "  late  Mass  " 
out  at  Glen,  had  long  since  been  laid  to  rest  in  the  peaceful 
graveyard   among  the   ash  trees  where  my  own  dearest 


THE   MOUNTAINY   MAN  7 

also  slept.  But  all  very  living  and  real  they  seemed  to  me 
that  September  day  ;  and  dead  or  living  I  knew  that  there 
was  none  of  them  who  would  not  be  proud  to  think  that 
I  had  not  proved  unfaithful  to  the  unbroken  tradition  of 
Irish  Nationalism. 

As  we  walked  along,  my  companion  talked  with  that 
eloquence  and  keenness  and  breadth  of  interest  which  are 
so  characteristic  of  the  Irish  peasant.  He  told  me  stories 
of  the  mountains,  narrated  wanderings  and  adventures  in 
search  of  strayed  sheep,  gave  his  views  on  farming  and  prices 
and  crops,  quoted  songs  and  ballads  and  discussed  great 
events,  both  in  Irish  and  world  history.  Needless  to  say, 
the  present,  with  all  its  sufferings  and  all  its  proud  hopes, 
was  ntver  far  from  our  thoughts. 

"  I'm  saying,"  my  friend  remarked  as  we  sat  to  rest  on 
the  side  of  a  green  hill  that  shelved  down  to  a  mountain 
stream  that  gurgled  below,  "  I  was  reading  that  this  man, 
Lloyd  George,  expects  to  have  this  job  of  conquering 
Ireland  finished  in  about  six  weeks  time." 

"  In  less,"  I  responded.  "  Sir  Hamar  Greenwood  has 
announced  that  the  Last  Conquest  of  Ireland  is  to  be 
finally  completed  by  the  19th  October."* 

"  Well,"  was  the  reply,  "  if  Lloyd  George  finishes  the 
job  in  that  time,  I'm  afraid  he'll  have  to  work  overtime — 
both  by  night  and  day." 

"  It's  a  grand  thing  to  feel,  anyway,"  I  said,  "  that  with 
all  their  power  and  the  hundred  thousand  troops  they  have 
they  cannot  catch  me." 

"  Ach  !  "  he  exclaimed,  clasping  my  hand.  "  I'm  proud 
to  be  taking  a  hand  at  beating  them." 

Thus  the  day  passed.  I  gloried  in  the  beauty  of  the  hills 
and  plains,  drank  in  great  draughts  of  pure  air  from  the 

*  It  may  be  remarked  that  the  date  of  final  conquest  was  afterwards  put 
back  to   1st  December,  then  to   1st  March,  and  then  to  Easter. 


8  "ON   MY   KEEPING  " — AND   IN   THEIRS 

heather,  and  listened  to  my  companion's  ever  interesting 
conversation. 

When  the  darkening  shadows  of  the  evening  began  to 
fall,  we  called  in  a  house  that  adjoined  a  mountain  road, 
and  I  was  received  as  if  I  were  a  prince.  A  week  ago  no 
fuss  would  have  been  made  about  me  ;  but  now  I  was  a 
man  hunted  for  Ireland  !  So  the  girl  of  the  house  hastened 
to  make  a  meal  for  us,  and  her  brother  showered  kindnesses 
on  us.  It  will  take  a  lot  of  conquering  to  make  a  nation, 
the  backbone  of  which  is  a  peasantry  made  up  of  people 
like  these,  forget  its  proud  dream  of  freedom  and  settle 
down  as  slaves. 

We  were  now  near  the  village  in  which  I  carried  on  my 
professional  work  ;  and  just  as  it  was  getting  dark  we  stopped 
to  talk  to  a  very  old  man  at  the  door  of  a  cottage.  He  knew 
my  guide  but  was  not  aware  of  my  identity. 

"  Is  there  any  news  in  the  town  ?  "  my  friend  asked. 

"  Oh  aye  !  Did  you  not  hear  about  the  attorney  ?  The 
sodgers  were  looking  for  him  the  other  day  and  raided  his 
office.' ' 

"  And  did  they  get  him  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  No  !  "  he  responded.  "  But  he  needn't  be  hidin' ! 
For  there  will  be  always  somebody  to  tell  on  him." 

The  night  came  down  and  the  stars  shone  bright  above 
us  and  lights  began  to  twinkle  along  the  mountain-side  and 
in  the  valley.  I  knew  that  they,  shone  from  happy,  innocent 
homes  where  old  and  young  would  gather  round  the  fireside 
before  bed-time  and  tell  stories  and  sing  songs  of  love 
and  Ireland. 

Then  the  moon  rose  from  behind  the  mountains 
of  Tyrone,  and  soon  the  whole  valley  of  Ballynascreen  lay 
clothed  in  glorious  radiance.  It  was  good  to  stand  for  a 
minute  now  and  then  and  let  the  peace  and  glory  and  beauty 
of  it  all  sink  into  one's  soul. 


THE   MOUNTAINY   MAN  9 

At  road  ends  we  passed  groups  of  young  men  that  bade 
us  "  Good  Night  " — no  doubt  wondering  who  we  were. 
Good,  too,  to  know  that  the  country  now  contained  so 
many  such  young  men  and  to  realise  the  proud  determina- 
tion that  rilled  their  souls  to  see  the  country  freed  in  this 
generation. 

"  There's  a  fire  kindled  in  Ireland  now,"  my  friend  re- 
marked as  we  walked  along,  "  that  can  never  be  put  out." 

Then  we  reached  our  destination,  and  sought  shelter 
under  another  hospitable  roof.  I  thanked  my  guide  for  his 
long,  weary  journey  and  apologised  for  bringing  him  so 
far. 

"  I  said  I  would  bring  you  safe  to  where  you  asked  me," 
he  answered  proudly  ;  "  and  it  would  have  been  the  same 
if  it  had  been  to  Galway,  let  alone  to  here.  A  small  thing 
that  to  do  for  any  man  that's  on  his  keeping  for  Ireland  !  " 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


CHAPTER     III; 

IN    AN    ULSTER    GLEN. 

Some  of  the  most  enjoyable  days  I  spent  when  I  was  "  on 
my  keeping  "  was  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  our  Ulster 
glens.  It  is  situate  in  the  heart  of  the  hills,  far  away  from 
towns  and  villages.  Stately  mountains  wall  it  in  and  a 
fair  stream,  fed  by  fast-rushing  mountain  rivulets,  winds 
its  serpentine  way  through  it. 

The  people  who  dwell  in  it  are  a  joy  to  know.  They  are 
industrious  and  comfortably  circumstanced,  living  simple, 
duty-filled,  innocent  lives,  with  keen  minds  and  clean  hearts, 
and  they  are  full  of  the  spirits  of  Faith  and  Patriotism 
and  Fun. 

It  is  a  perfectly  peaceful  place,  even  in  the  present  restless 
state  of  Ireland,  for  the  simple  reason  that  there  is  no 
disturbing  element.  The  Army  of  Occupation  in  the  persons 
of  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary,  were  withdrawn  from  the 
Glen  a  year  or  two  ago  ;  and,  strange  though  that  might 
appear  to  an  unsophisticated  Englishman  or  Frenchman 
or  American,  the  withdrawal  of  the  police  from  any  district 
in  Ireland  usually  means  that  there  is  going  to  be  a  chance 
for  the  "  reign  of  I/aw."  Order  is  now  preserved  by  the 
Volunteers  and  disputes  settled  by  the  local  Arbitration 
Courts  ;  and,  although  the  Glen  is  in  the  very  heart  of 
Carsonite  Ulster,  it  is  entirely  governed  by  the  authority 
of  the  Irish  Republic. 

The  approaches  to  the  Glen  are  so  difficult  and  the  one 
road  that  runs  through  it  so  narrow  that  a  military  lorry 

10 


IN   AN   ULSTER   GLEN  II 

dare  not  venture  into  the  place.  So  that  the  people  can  sleep 
peaceably  and  contentedly  at  night.  I  had  no  cause  to 
worry  for  my  safety  whilst  I  was  there  ;  and,  accordingly, 
I  roamed  about  amongst  the  people  as  it  pleased  me,  talked 
Irish  with  the  old  and  made  fun  with  the  young,  entered 
into  all  the  life  and  gossip  and  interests  and  amusements 
of  the  parish,  climbed  the  mountains  and  revelled  in  the 
beauty  of  the  hills  and  valleys  that  surrounded  me. 

The  Glen  was  full  of  life  and  character  ;  and  as  I  sat  at 
night  by  the  kitchen  fire  of  the  good  priest,  whose  guest  I 
was,  and  the  neighbour  lads  gathered  in  for  a  night's  talk, 
many  a  hearty  laugh  I  got  at  their  comical  accounts  of 
incidents  in  the  life  and  history  of  the  happy  valley. 

Of  course,  everybody  in  the  Glen  was  intensely  interested 
in  the  great  national  struggle  in  which  their  country  was 
engaged.  The  newspapers  only  reached  the  place  on  the 
day  subsequent  to  publication  ;  but  if  anyone  had  happened 
to  have  business  to  what  was  dignified  with  the  name 
"  the  Town  "  and  had  seen  a  paper  on  the  day  of  issue, 
he  had  to  be  prepared  to  summarise  its  contents  for  the 
benefit  of  all  he  met.  I  used  to  admire  their  skill  as  sub- 
editors. 

This  is  the  sort  of  dialogue  you  would  hear  : 

"  And  were  you  in  the  town  the  day  ?  " 

"  I  was." 

"Is  there  much  in  the  paper  ?  " 

"  The  Black  and  Tans  have  burned  down  another  town  ; 
and  Greenwood  says  it  must  have  been  the  Sinn  Feiners 
that  wrecked  the  last  one." 

"  He  wud  that.    Boys,  but  isn't  he  the  notorious  liar  !  " 

"  And,"  the  sub-editor  would  proceed,  "  Griffith  has  wired 
De  Valera  asking  that  wan  of  the  x\merican  States  should 
each  adopt  wan  of  the  ruined  towns  ;  and  Asquith  has  a 
letter  in  favour  of  full  Colonial  Home  Rule." 


12  ON   MY   KEEPING     — AND   IN   THEIRS 

Everybody  in  the  Glen  was  full  of  interest  in  all  that 
went  on  in  the  great  outside  world  ;  and  surveyed  with 
keen  and  critical  eye  the  doings  of  mankind  "  from  China 
to  Peru."  One  of  those  most  interested  in  world  movements 
and  politics  was  a  deaf  mute  who  read  with  great  zest 
every  scrap  of  newspaper  that  fell  into  his  hands.  Some- 
times he  would  miss  seeing  a  paper  for  a  day  or  two  and  then 
he  would  take  great  trouble  to  piece  together  the  resulting 
broken  threads.  Thus,  one  day,  he  saw  a  reference  to  the 
"  Red  "  and  "  White  "  armies  in  Russia  ;  and,  not  having 
heard  of  these  bodies  before,  he  went  to  the  priest  who 
was  the  most  learned  man  in  the  place,  and,  pointing  his 
finger  to  the  two  names,  intimated  that  he  would  like  his 
advice  as  to  which  army  the  public  opinion  of  the  Glen 
should  support. 

I  was  present  as  a  spectator  at  one  of  the  Courts  held 
in  the  Glen,  and  as  one  who  has  spent  his  working  life  in 
the  practice  of  English  law  and  attendances  at  British 
courts  I  carried  away  a  very  high  opinion  of  the  efficiency 
and  common-sense  that  characterised  this  Court  and  its 
methods.  One  case  was  very  illuminating,  as  showing  how 
completely  the  British  legal  system  had  broken  down  in 
all  parts  of  Ireland. 

In  one  of  the  Unionist  counties  some  men  had  broken 
into  a  Protestant  small  farmer's  house  and  stolen  a  sum  of 
money.  Though  the  district  in  which  this  had  occurred 
was  in  the  very  heart  of  so-called  homogeneous,  Carsonite 
Ulster,  the  British  Authorities  were  unable  to  trace  the 
wrong-doers.  The  Crown  Forces  in  Ireland  are  too  busy 
at  present  raiding  and  burning  houses  and  persecuting 
people  for  the  crime  of  wishing  to  be  free  to  bother  about 
defending  even  Unionist  property. 

Finding  that  the  police  had  not  moved  in  the  matter, 
the  Irish  Volunteers  stepped  in  and  arrested  the  evil-doers 


IN   AN   ULSTER   GLEN  13 

and  brought  them  before  the  Court.  The  judge  seemed  a 
young  man  and  was  obviously  not  a  professional  lawyer, 
but  he  comported  himself  with  a  dignity  and  impartiality 
and,  above  all,  a  sturdy  common-sense  that  would  have 
done  honour  to  any  tribunal.  He  showed  the  accused 
every  consideration,  and  treated  them  with  the  utmost 
fairness  ;  but  he  made  short  work  of  the  legal  quibbles 
of  their  advocate,  and  the  decision  at  which  he  arrived 
struck  me  as  an  eminently  reasonable  one. 

For  endeavouring  to  make  life  and  property  secure 
through  the  agency  of  these  Courts  men  are  now  being  hunted 
down  all  over  Ireland  by  the  forces  of  British  tyranny.  I 
met  a  young  man  in  Derry  Jail — Iiam  O'Duffy — who  was 
a  solid  tor's  clerk.  He  was  a  fine,  manly,  noble-hearted 
youth  who  in  any  civilised  country  but  Ireland  would  have 
been  regarded  as  an  ornament  to  the  community  in  which 
he  lived.  He  was  tried  by  Court-Martial,  and  the  only 
evidence  tendered  against  him  was  that  of  policemen  who 
swore  that  they  saw  him  at  an  Arbitration  Court,  sitting 
with  a  bundle  of  documents  before  him.  On  the  strength  of 
this  evidence  the  boy  was  sentenced  to  twelve  months' 
imprisonment. 

I  had  a  splendid  opportunity  of  becoming  acquainted 
with  the  inner  life  of  the  people  as  my  host  used  to  bring 
me  with  him  on  his  "  sick  calls."  The  priest  in  such  a  parish 
has  to  be  a  man  of  many  parts.  In  addition  to  providing 
them  with  spiritual  comforts  my  friend  had  to  make  wills 
for  the  old,  prescribe  for  the  sick,  and  to  advise  on  all  sorts 
of  matters.  It  was  a  delight  to  sit  with  him  in  the  neat 
cottage  kitchens,  to  see  the  joy  with  which  he  was  welcomed, 
and  to  observe  the  sweet  chains  of  mutual  affection  that 
bound  him  to  his  spiritual  children.  Everywhere  there 
was  that  note  of  happy  cheerfulness  that  characterises  a 
people  who  live  the  lives  of  simple  piety  and  devotion  to 


14  ON    MY   KEEPING     — AND   IN   THEIRS 

duty  for  which  the  Irish  peasantry  are  so  remarkable. 
Many  a  good  story  I  heard  in  those  kitchens,  many  an 
original  saying,   sharp  epigram,   and   brilliant     judgment. 

Though  their  hearts  were  sore  for  what  their  fellow- 
countrymen  were  suffering,  the  Glen  folk  had  a  keen  eye 
for  the  humour  that  seemed  always  to  lurk  amongst  the 
ruins.  Thus  they  quickly  seized  on  the  absurdity  of  an 
incident  that  centred  round  a  certain  Englishman  who  had 
come  to  take  a  hand  in  the  "  I^ast  Conquest  of  Ireland  M 
(perhaps).  The  name  of  the  hero  was,  I  believe,  Alfred 
Flint,  of  some  address  in  London  ;  but  if  my  memory 
plays  me  false  I  apologise  to  all  the  Alfred  Flints  in  the 
world.  The  man  had  been  in  the  "  Black  and  Tans  "  or 
"  Auxiliaries/'  and  after  he  left  them  he  wrote  a  letter  to 
the  Freeman  in  which  he  suggested  that  the  Force  was  not 
made  up  of  policemen  but  of  bandits  and  desperadoes.  He 
described  the  sort  of  raids  in  which  they  were  accustomed 
to  take  part,  and  said  that  he  had  resigned  from  them  in 
disgust.  The  next  day  or  so  Dublin  Castle  issued  an  official 
communique  commencing  somewhat  in  this  fashion  :  "  The 
attention  of  His  Majesty's  Government  has  been  drawn  to 
a  letter  which  has  appeared  in  the  Press  over  the  signature 
of  Alfred  Flint."  Then  it  expressed  its  "desire  to  point 
out  "  that  Mr.  Flint  had  not  resigned,  but  had  been  dis- 
missed for  stealing  a  pair  of  trousers.  Which  allegation 
Mr,  Flint  solemnly  denied  in  a  letter  the  following  day. 

This  is  the  sort  of  conversation  you  would  hear  in  the 
Glen  about  all  this  : 

"  Is  there  much  news  in  the  paper  the  day  ?  " 

"No.   Nothing  worth  talking  about." 

"  Js  there  nothing  more  about  Flint's  trousers  ?  Boys- 
a-boys  !  But  the  oul'  Empire  must  be  in  a  bad  way  when 
the  Government  had  to  start  arguing  with  a  boy  like  Flint 
about  a  pair  of  oul'  trousers." 


IN   AN   ULSTER   GLEN  15 

For  a  hunted  man  my  days  were  wonderfully  peaceful 
in  that  happy  valley.  Only  once  was  I  really  anxious.  I 
was  at  breakfast  with  the  priest  when  the  housekeeper 
rushed  in  to  say  that  there  was  a  motor  load  of  police 
coming  up  the  road.  I  was  astonished  at  my  own  agility 
as  I  dashed,  without  coat  or  hat,  in  the  rain,  through  a  hedge 
at  the  back  of  the  house  and  across  a  field  up  to  the  heath. 

I  took  shelter  in  a  poor  woman's  house  on  the  hills  for 
an  hour  or  two  till  the  danger  had  passed.  The  cabin  was 
a  wretched  one  and  the  rain  was  coming  in  through  the 
thatched  roof  ;  but  the  welcome  she  gave  me  when  I  told 
her  I  was  "  on  my  keeping  "  for  Ireland's  sake  would  have 
brightened  any  habitation.  We  talked  about  the  country 
and  the  "  trouble,"  the  stormy  season  and  the  bad  crops, 
and  she  told  me  the  story  of  her  simple  but  sorrow-laden 
life.  Her  potato  crop  was  almost  a  complete  failure  and 
she  had  hardly  been  able  to  get  home  any  turf  against  the 
winter  that  was  then  almost  upon  us. 

It  was  a  bleak  outlook.  "  Acht  "  (But),  she  said,  "  Ta 
Dia  maith  agus  ta  mathair  mhaith  Aige  !  "  ("  God's  good 
and  He  has  a  good  mother  !  ")  And  she  turned  her  eyes 
with  a  look  of  loving  confidence  to  the  picture  of  the  Virgin 
that  hung  above  her  bed. 

It  was  a  striking  exemplification  of  the  personal  love  and 
intimacy  that  binds  the  Irish  peasant  to  God  and  His  saints. 
Justice  might  demand  punishment  for  wrong-doing,  but  the 
human  heart  of  the  Son  of  Man  could  not  resist  His  Mother's 
pleas  for  pity. 

I  thought  of  what  the  woman  had  said  as  I  stood  at  the 
open  window  of  my  bedroom  that  night.  The  dark  peaks 
of  the  mountains  looked  wonderfully  solemn  in  the  moon- 
light and  I  could  hear  the  murmur  of  the  river  as  it  glided 
down  the  Glen.  Lights  still  shone  in  the  cabins  along  the 
hillside  and  away  in  the  distance  a  restless  dog  bayed  the 


l6  "ON    MY   KEEPING" — AND   IN   THEIRS 

moon.  I  knew  that  that  same  moon  was  shining  into  a  room 
a  long  distance  away  from  me,  where  a  woman  was  kneeling 
amid  a  group  of  little  worshippers  who  were  praying  that 
the  soldiers  might  not  find  "  Daddy  "  and  that  God  might 
soon  send  him  home. 

What  would  be  the  end  of  it  all  for  them  and  for  me  ? 

"  Acht  ta  Dia  maith  agus  ta  mathair  mhaith  Aige,"  I 
said  to  myself.   And  I  knew  that  all  would  be  well. 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


CHAPTER    IV. 

DUBLIN    DURING    THE    TERROR. 

When  I  had  spent  about  a  week  in  the  Happy  Valley  I 
thought  I  would  try  and  make  my  way  to  Dublin.  To  get 
to  the  most  convenient  railway  station  I  had  to  go  to  a 
garrison  town,  and  there  was  a  danger  that  I  might  be 
recognised  there  by  some  policeman. 

My  host  motored  me  to  the  house  of  another  "  rebel  " 
priest  who  lived  about  three  miles  from  the  railway  station. 
When  we  got  to  his  house,  we  found  that  it  had  been  raided 
by  a  party  of  military  on  the  night  or  two  preceding.  The 
search  had  been  a  most  exhaustive  one  and  the  soldiers 
had  been  even  ordered  by  their  officers  to  dig  up  a  grave 
in  the  adjoining  graveyard.  But  neither  arms  nor  what 
is  called  in  Ireland  "  seditious  literature  "  (i.e.,  copies  of 
the  New  Witness,  extracts  from  Mr.  Bonar  Law's  speeches 
in  1913,  or  portraits  of  certain  dead  Irishmen)  had  been 
found  on  the  premises.  Thereon  hangs  a  tale  in  which  a 
brave  and  nimble-minded  girl,  who  acts  as  the  priest's 
housekeeper,  figures,  but  it  must  remain  untold  "  for  the 
duration  of  the  war." 

The  news  that  met  us  from  the  garrison  town  was  that 
there  was  great  police  and  military  activity  in  the  neighbour- 
hood ;  and  it  was  doubtful  if  I  could  get  through.  But  I 
thought  it  worth  risking,  and  my  friends  worked  out  the 
strategy  that  I  was  to  adopt.  A  young  lady  teacher,  who 
had  business  in  the  town,  got  into  the  motor  with  me  and 
agreed  to  accompany  me  to  the  train  and  see  me  off  as  if 

17  0 


18  "ON   MY   KEEPING" — AND   IN   THEIRS 

I  were  a  person  going  away  after  a  visit  at  his  country 
cousin's.  She  played  her  part  very  well.  The  policeman 
on  the  platform,  whose  duty  it  was  to  keep  his  eye  on 
strangers,  paid  no  further  heed  to  me  when  he  saw  me 
engage  in  animated  conversation — about  the  weather — 
with  a  British  officer  who  stood  beside  me  in  the  queue  at 
the  ticket  office,  and  the  affectionate  farewell  that  I  bade 
my  fair  "  cousin  "  when  the  train  steamed  in  was,  I  fear, 
an  entirely  superfluous  histrionic  effort. 

In  Dublin  I  felt  perfectly  secure.  In  the  country  a 
stranger  cannot  escape  unwelcome  attentions,  and  there  is 
always  a  certain  amount  of  tension  for  a  hunted  man.  But 
it  was  different  in  the  Capital,  and  I  was  able  to  enjoy 
some  really  restful  days. 

I  stopped  in  a  quiet  part  of  the  city  with  two  ladies  ; 
and  as  they  led  a  very  secluded  life,  only  minding  their 
prayers  and  their  work,  there  "was  hardly  any  danger  of 
a  raid  on  their  house.  They  spared  themselves  no  trouble 
to  make  me  comfortable.  I  was  able  to  write  to  my  wife 
and  my  clerk  every  day  and  to  receive  letters  under  cover. 
So  that  I  had  every  reason  to  be  as  happy  as  a  hunted 
man  could  be. 

I  had  not  been  in  Dublin  for  months  ;  and  it  was 
interesting  to  feel  the  pulse  and  mark  the  heart-beats  of 
the  grand  old  city  in  the  crisis  of  the  supreme  struggle 
upon  which  Ireland  had  then  entered. 

It  was  just  then  that  the  British  Cabinet  had  made 
open  league  with  the  fiends  of  Hell  and  launched  their 
policy  of  "  Black  and  Tanism  "  and  reprisals  :  in  the  foolish 
hope  that  thereby  they  would  break  for  ever  the  Irish 
determination  to  be  free. 

The  newspapers  reeked  with  horrors  every  day.  We 
read  of  towns  sacked  by  savages  wearing  the  King  of 
England's  uniform ;  of  men  being  taken  out  of  their  beds 


DUBLIN   DURING   THE   TERROR  19 

and  shot  in  cold  blood  ;  of  smoking  homesteads,  tortured 
women,  and  shrieking  children.  Military  motor  lorries  and 
armoured  cars  careered  through  the  streets  both  by  day 
and  night,  and  every  person  one  met  had  some  fresh  tale 
of  horror  to  relate. 

I  wondered  what  the  effect  of  it  would  be  on  the  morale 
of  our  civilian  population  ;  and  Dublin  is  so  representative 
of  all  Ireland  that  it  was  the  most  favourable  place  in 
which  to  test  the  matter.  I  had  always  believed  that  our 
people  would  stand  the  strain.  But  their  amazing  courage 
exceeded  all  my  expectations.  So  far  from  there  being 
any  sign  of  weakening,  there  seemed  a  hardening  of  the 
determination  to  see  the  struggle  through.  Everybody, 
too,  was  full  of  hope,  and  it  was  no  spirit  of  mere  unreasoning 
optimism  that  prompted  the  feeling.  There  was  no  under- 
rating of  the  enemy's  resources.  The  cost  was  counted 
and  the  danger  duly  appreciated.  But  we  were  sustained 
by  the  knowledge  that  there  was  a  spirit  abroad  in  Ireland 
which  simply  could  not  be  broken. 

The  men  bit  their  lips  with  grim  determination,  the  women 
prayed,  and  in  every  church  you  entered  you  saw  tense- 
faced  groups  who  made  intercession  before  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  or  round  a  picture  of  Our  Lady  of  Perpetual 
Succour  for  their  country  and  themselves.  But  there  was 
not  even  a  whisper  of  surrender,  and  on  every  side  the  proud 
declaration  was  re-echoed  :  "  We  shall  have  our  own 
again  \"  So  it  has  been  in  every  time  of  intensive  coercion 
and  repression  in  Ireland.  After  all,  it  was  the  suave  Mr. 
Birrell  that  went  nearest  to  achieving  "  the  Last  Conquest 
of  Ireland." 

I  had  no  trouble  in  getting  through  the  garrison  town 
on  my  way  back  to  the  Happy  Valley.  I  came  off  the  evening 
mail  train  from  Dublin  ;  and  in  the  rush  and  bustle  of  the 
platform  nobody  seemed   to   pay  any   attention   to  me. 


20  "ON   MY   KEEPING  " — AND   IN   THEIRS 

The  good  priest  of  the  Glen  was  waiting  for  me  with  a  motor 
at  the  outskirts  of  the  town  ;  and  just  as  the  shades  of  night 
fell  we  set  out  on  our  journey  over  the  hills. 

A  hold-up  that  night  might  have  had  serious  consequences 
for  more  than  me.  For  our  driver  had  no  "  permit,"  and 
in  addition  to  such  a  lump  of  contraband  as  I  myself  con- 
stituted we  had  on  board  a  Volunteer  who,  I  was  informed, 
had  been  wounded  in  action  and  whom  it  was  found 
necessary  to  remove  to  a  place  of  safety  to  escape  the  danger 
of  a  military  or  police  raid  on  the  house  in  which  he  had 
been  convalescing. 

We  soon  got  out  of  what  we  considered  the  danger  zone, 
but  then  a  new  peril  beset  us.  Our  lights  went  out  and 
we  had  no  means  of  making  them  right  again.  It  was  a 
pitch  dark  night,  and  we  just  had  to  creep  up  the  narrow 
mountain  road  and  down  the  other  side.  The  road  ran  across 
a  bleak,  desolate  mountain.  At  parts  there  were  no  fences, 
and  only  our  chauffeur  knew  every  inch  of  the  ground  I 
don't  know  how  we  could  have  avoided  disaster.  I  breathed 
a  pra}'er  of  fervent  thankfulness,  indeed,  when  at  last  the 
lights  of  a  little  mountain  village  that  nestled  between  the 
hills  shone  through  the  darkness. 

We  had  hoped  to  get  proper  lights  in  the  village,  but  after 
searching  over  the  whole  place  all  we  could  secure  was  a 
small  lamp  belonging  to  an  ordinary  "  push "  bicycle. 
With  it  to  guide  us,  we  began  the  last  stage  of  our  journey. 
It  was  the  most  perilous,  because  we  had  to  make  our  way 
through  a  gap  in  the  hills  that  divided  our  glen  from  the 
adjoining  one,  and  the  road  was  a  great  deal  worse  than 
the  one  we  had  crossed. 

Near  the  entrance  to  the  gap  a  friend  persuaded  us  to 
stop  for  a  few  hours  at  his  house  till  the  Moon  would  rise. 
He  said  that  we  could  never  get  through  the  gap  in  the 
dark.    So  we  accepted  his  hospitality,  and  drank  tea  and 


DUBLIN   DURING  THE  TERROR  21 

smoked  and  chatted  by  his  comfortable  fireside  till  one  or 
two  in  the  morning. 

It  was  a  mistake.  For  the  Moon  forgot  to  rise  that  night, 
and  it  began  to  rain.  So  that  when  we  got  into  the  car 
again  it  was  even  darker  than  when  we  entered  the  honse. 
But  we  had  to  risk  it.  For  the  good  priest  feared  that  there 
might  be  a  sick  call  awaiting  him,  and,  at  any  rate,  we  had 
to  dispose  of  the  wounded  volunteer. 

The  experience  was  anything  but  a  pleasant  one.  The 
wretched  bicycle  lamp  hardly  afforded  us  any  assistance. 
The  rain  poured  down  on  us  and  blew  into  our  driver's 
face  ;  and  the  wind  howled  furiously  around  us.  Our  first 
difficulty  was  to  get  across  a  wooden  bridge  that  spanned 
a  mountain  torrent.  There  was  a  sharp  turn  at  the  point ; 
and  if  we  had  deviated  even  a  foot  from  the  narrow  path 
we  would  probably  have  been  dashed  to  pieces  against  the 
rocks  in  the  bed  of  the  stream  below.  But  our  driver  kept 
the  path  and  negotiated  the  turn  with  superb  skill. 

That  was  only  the  beginning  of  our  troubles.  The  road 
ran  for  a  considerable  distance  along  the  face  of  a  hill 
which  on  one  side  towered  above  us  like  some  hideous 
monster,  whilst  on  the  other  there  was  a  steep  decline 
that  in  the  darkness  seemed  to  lead  into  a  bottomless 
abyss.  There  were  no  fences  here  at  all,  and  only  for  the 
skill  and  nerve  and  brawn  of  our  driver  we  might  easily 
have  been  smashed  into  bits.  At  other  parts  of  the  road 
we  had  to  climb  or  descend  hills  that  seemed  almost  as 
steep  as  the  side  walls  of  a  house.  The  strain  on  the  brakes 
was  terrific,  and  once  we  had  to  stop  in  the  pelting  rain 
till  our  driver  rested  his  arms  and  his  nerves  had  recovered 
their  equilibrium.  It  was  bitterly  cold,  and  my  heart  was 
sore  for  the  wounded  man  who  I  saw  was  enduring  agonies. 

But  we  had  some  poor  body's  prayers,  as  we  say  in  Ireland, 
and  at  last  we  reached  my  friend's  house  about  fehree  in 


22  ON   MY   KEEPING     — AND   IN    THEIRS 

the  morning  without  accident  but  wet  to  the  skin  and  cold 
and  hungry. 

"  Well,"  I  said  to  the  priest  as  I  sipped  hot  milk  and 
tried  to  dry  my  clothes  at  his  kitchen  fire,  "  it's  funny 
to  find  a  middle-aged,  humdrum  solicitor,  with  a  wife  and 
family  and  a  comfortable  home,  out  on  an  expedition  of 
that  sort  on  such  a  night  as  this  !  " 

"  It's  a  queer  country,  Ireland  !  "  responded  my  friend 
sententiously. 

That  week  I  learned  the  joyful  tidings  that  the  warrant 
for  my  arrest  had  been  withdrawn  ;  and  on  Saturday 
evening  I  heard  the  cry  for  which  my  heart  had  hungered 
during  the  preceding  weeks,  when  a  band  of  little  toddlers, 
who  had  been  watching  all  evening  by  the  window  of  our 
home  rushed  up  the  street  to  meet  me  with  a  wild  shriek 
of  "  Daddy  !  "  As  my  wife  and  I  knelt  down  that  night 
to  say  the  Rosary  in  thanksgiving  and  I  looked  at  the 
happy-faced,  bright-eyed  little  worshippers  around  us,  the 
words  of  the  old  woman  came  back  to  me  :  "  Ta  Dia  maith 
agus  ta  mathair  mhaith  Aige  !  "  ("  God's  good  and  He  has 
a  good  mother  !  ") 


CHAPTER    V. 

"IN    THEIR    KEEPING " 

The  year  1920  was  for  me  a  veritable  annus  mirabilis. 
During  it  I  bought  a  house  in  The  Cross — or,  to  give  it  its 
modern,  commonplace,  Anglicised  name,  Draperstown — 
with  a  view  to  moving  there  from  my  former  home  in 
Ballycastle  ;  I  had  a  miraculous  escape  from  death  at  the 
hands  of  an  Orange  mob  that  had  been  imported  into 
Ballymoney  with  the  object  of  preventing  me  holding  an 
election  meeting  there  ;  I  had  surprised  alike  my  friends 
and  my  foes  by  getting  returned  to  the  Antrim  County 
Council  at  the  top  of  the  poll  for  the  Ballymoney  Electoral 
Area  ;  I  had  my  premises  raided  two  or  three  times  by  the 
British  armed  forces  ;  I  spent  part  of  the  Autumn  "  on  my 
keeping  "  ;  and  I  ate  my  Christmas  dinner  and  closed  the 
year  in  jail. 

My  new  house  was  being  made  ready  for  me  in  December. 
For  the  previous  eighteen  months  I  had  only  been  able 
to  spend  the  week-ends  with  my  family,  and  I  was  looking 
eagerly  forward  to  the  happiness  of  having  them  with  me 
always.  I  lived  in  anticipation  through  all  the  joys  that 
Christmas  brings  when  one  lives  in  a  home  full  of  healthy, 
happy  children  ;  and  we  had  already  invited  the  few  friends 
who  were  to  share  with  us  our  Christmas  dinner. 

I  was  spending  the  week-end  in  Maghera,  where  my 
family,  during  the  transition  period,  were  quartered  in  the 
houses  of  kind  relatives.     On  Sunday  evening,  the  12th 

23 


24  ON   MY   KEEPING     — AND   IN   THEIRS 

December,  I  had  walked  out  to  my  wife's  mother's  place 
at  Silver  Hill  for  tea.  My  wife  and  some  of  the  little  ones 
were  there.  A  couple  of  friends  dropped  in  and  we  had 
a  merry  evening.  The  conversation  turned — as  it  is  so 
liable  to  do  in  Ireland  these  times — on  the  subject  of  jails, 
and  we  laughed  a  good  deal  about  prison  experiences  that 
we  had  heard  recounted  by  acquaintances  who  had  been 
privileged  to  enjoy  his  Britannic  Majesty's  hospitality  in 
some  of  these  institutions. 

On  my  way  back  to  my  sister's  house,  where  I  was 
stopping,  I  called  in  Rathlurie,  the  home  of  my  dear  friend 
and  good  comrade,  Pat  Agnew,  solicitor.  There  was  a  card 
party  in  progress  there  ;  but  we  broke  up  early  as  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Agnew  had  arranged  to  go  to  Belfast  on  the  early 
train  on  Monday  morning.  Pat  had  some  business  in  the 
city,  and  if  he  would  have  time,  he  intended  to  call  in  to 
the  prison  to  see  our  mutual  friend,  Tom  Finnegan,  to 
whom  I  sent  a  message  of  good  cheer. 

After  we  had  left,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Agnew  lingered  for  a 
few  minutes  by  the  fireside.  They  sat  on  easy  chairs,  a 
good  fire  burned  on  the  hearth,  the  room  was  bright  and 
cosy.  They  had  been  talking  of  Finnegan  and  other  "  jail- 
birds "  of  their  acquaintance,  and  the  contrast  that  the 
mention  of  a  lonely  prison  cell  suggested  made  their  present 
surroundings  seem  all  the  more  delightful.  Pat  felt  that 
glow  of  sweet  content  and  satisfaction  at  his  heart  that 
a  man  is  wont  to  feel  when  he  looks  across  the  fireplace 
at  a  pretty  wife  shining  like  a  dazzling  jewel  in  a  well  fur- 
nished room,  and  following  up  the  train  of  thought  that 
the  mention  of  poor  Finnegan  had  initiated,  he  exclaimed, 
as  he  lit  his  last  cigarette  :  "  It's  a  good  deal  " — or  perhaps 
his  exact  words  were  :  "  It's  a  damned  sight  "  for  he  only 
spoke  from  memory  when  he  told  me  the  story — "  more 
comfortable  here  to-night  than  it  would  be  in  jail,  darling." 


"in  their  keeping  25 

He  did  not  tell  me  that  lie  said  "  darling,"  but  I  know 
that  if  he  did  not  say  that,  he  used  some  equally  endearing 
term.  In  about  an  hour's  time  he  was  shivering  on  a  motor 
lorry  on  his  way  to  jail ! 

I  got  to  my  sister's  about  twelve  o'clock,  and  was  preparing 
to  go  to  bed  when  I  heard  what  sounded  like  a  military 
lorry  lumbering  up  the  street.  I  had  no  expectation  of 
being  arrested  at  the  time,  but  as  one  never  knows  what 
is  going  to  happen  in  Ireland  I  listened  for  a  few  moments 
to  see  if  the  vehicle  would  stop  at  the  house.  It  did  not. 
So  commenting  to  myself  :  "  They  must  be  raiding  some- 
where in  this  district  to-night !  "  I  lit  a  candle  and  went  to 
bed. 

I  had  a  strange  feeling  that  something  was  going  to 
happen  that  would  profoundly  influence  my  subsequent 
life.  But  I  said  my  prayers,  and  placed  myself  under  the 
special  protection  of  Our  Lady  of  Perpetual  Succour, 
knowing  that  she  would  see  me  safely  through  every 
difficulty. 

Next  morning  before  I  was  up  I  heard  that  Mr.  Agnew 
and  my  brother  had  been  arrested  during  the  night  ;  and 
whilst  I  was  dressing,  my  little  niece,  Maighread,  ran  up- 
stairs to  tell  me  that  the  local  sergeant  of  police  was  waiting 
for  me  downstairs. 

He  told  me  that  the  military  had,  after  the  arrest  of  the 
other  two,  gone  on  to  the  Cross  during  the  night  in  the 
hope  of  catching  me  there,  but  finding  that  I  was  at  Maghera 
they  had  telephoned  to  him  to  detain  me.  So  for  the  first 
time  I  felt  myself  in  the  grip  of  England's  mighty  paw, 
and  I  proceeded  with  Sergeant  Carter  to  the  police  barracks. 

In  the  evening  a  military  lorry  arrived  from  Magherafelt 
for  me  and  I  was  placed  on  it  in  the  midst  of  bayonets.  A 
crowd  had  gathered  outside  the  barracks,  and  I  got  the 
greeting  and  send-off  that  the.  big  hearts  of  our  common 


26  "ON    MY   KEEPING" — AND   IN   THEIRS 

people  love  to  bestow  on  everyone  who  is  privileged  to 
suffer  for  Ireland.  The  men  cheered  and  the  women  waved 
their  hands  at  me,  and  in  a  flash  were  revealed  to  me  the 
subtle  bonds  of  affection  that  linked  together  myself  and 
all  "  the  old  neighbours,"  as  we  love  to  call  them  in  Ireland. 
I  knew  that  women  to  whom  I  had  never  more  than  nodded 
all  my  life  would  weep  for  me  that  night  as  they  would  have 
done  for  their  own  sons,  that  all  my  shortcomings  would 
be  forgotten,  and  that  in  every  Catholic  home  in  the  village 
I  would  be  remembered  when  the  family  knelt  for  "  the 
joint  prayer." 

At  the  police  barracks  at  Magherafelt,  whither  I  was 
brought,  I  found  Mr.  Agnew  and  my  brother.  The  former 
gave  me  an  account  of  the  raid  on  his  premises,  and  the 
story  throws  so  much  light  on  British  Government  methods 
in  this  country  that  it  is  worth  recounting. 

He  had  not  been  long  in  bed  when  the  knock  came.  He 
rushed  down  in  his  pyjamas  and  found  at  the  door  an 
officer  in  charge  of  a  party  of  soldiers,  accompanied  by  a 
"  Black-and-Tan  "  policeman.  The  officer  said  that  he 
came  to  arrest  Mr.  Agnew  and  to  search  the  house,  and 
bade  him  dress.  They  went  upstairs  together,  and  the  officer 
stood  at  the  open  bedroom  door,  with  a  flashlight  in  his 
hand,  whilst  Pat  dressed.  When  he  had  finished  he  said 
to  the  officer  :  "  You  can  now  proceed  with  your  search 
here."  "  Oh,"  responded  the  other,  "  I  only  want  to  search 
two  rooms  on  the  ground  floor." 

.  Downstairs,  then,  they  went ;  and  when  they  got  there 
my  friend  noticed  that  a  soldier  and  the  policeman  were 
still  in  the  hall.  The  officer  walked  into  a  room  that  opened 
off  it,  and  almost  immediately  exclaimed  :  "  Here  are  five 
rounds  of  ammunition  !  " 

The  house  had  been  searched  by  another  party  of  military 
about  three  weeks  before  and  nothing  found.    Mrs.  Agnew 


IN   THEIR   KEEPING  27 

and  the  other  members  of  his  household,  who  had  constant 
access  to  the  press  in  which  the  ammunition  was  found, 
were  positive  that  it  could  not  have  been  there  when  they 
were  last  in  the  room.  Only  a  man  fit  for  a  lunatic  asylum — 
much  less  a  hard-headed  Ulster  solicitor — would  have  left 
ammunition  lying  about  in  that  careless  way  in  the  then 
condition  of  Ireland.  Furthermore,  the  officer  refrained 
from  searching  any  of  the  other  rooms,  although  one  would 
naturally  think  that,  having  found  the  ammunition,  he 
would  be  likely  to  make  some  effort  to  discover  the  weapon 
for  which  it  was  to  be  used. 

Mr.  Agnew  at  once  protested  that  the  ammunition  had 
been  "  planted,"  and  renewed  his  protest  before  his  Court- 
Martial  when  charged.  Yet  in  face  of  all  this  he  was  found 
"  guilty  "  by  a  court  of  officers  and  sentenced  to  six  months 
imprisonment  (reduced  to  three  by  the  Confirming 
Authority)  with  hard  labour. 

On  the  day  after  our  arrest  the  three  of  us  were  brought 
to  Derry  Jail  by  a  military  escort  in  charge  of  a  sergeant, 
who  told  us  that  he  was  prepared  to  fight  any  people  except 
Englishmen,  Scotchmen,  Welshmen  or  Irishmen,  and  who 
objected  strongly  to  having  to  do  what  he  regarded  as 
"  dirty  police  work  "  in  Ireland.  There  was  a  good  deal 
of  fraternisation  on  the  journey.  We  stood  some  of  our 
captors  a  luncheon  at  Coleraine,  and  the  sergeant 
demonstrated  by  the  aid  of  two  lumps  of  bread  how  the 
Irish  Question  should  be  settled.  "  This  is  our  bloody 
country,  and  that  is  yours"  was  his  formula,  "  and  they 
have  both  to  live  beside  each  other. "  One  lad — from  Berk- 
shire I  think  he  was — got  very  friendly  with  me  and  told 
me,  in  that  delightful  English  intimate  way,  all  about  his 
mother  and  his  sisters  and  his  brothers  and  his  best  girl. 
"  This  is  the  best  escort  ever  I  was  on,"  he  exclaimed 
enthusiastically  during  our  little  feast.  "  I'm  going  to  write 


28  "ON   MY   KEEPING" — AND   IN   THEIRS 

home  to  mother  about  it  ;  and  any  time  you're  going  to 
be  arrested  always  send  for  us  " 

We  sang  Irish  ballads  together  and  joined  in  soldier 
choruses  such  as  one  about  "  We  had  a  sergeant-major  that 
never  saw  a  Hun,  but  he  got  the  V.C.  for  drinking  the 
Conchies'  rum." 

Or  the  whole  the  journey  was  a  very  merry  one  indeed  ; 
but  we  got  to  Derry  Gaol  just  as  well  as  if  we  had  been 
handcuffed  all  the  way  and  the  escort  and  prisoners  had 
been  disciples  of  Mr.  "  Pussyfoot  "  Johnson.  That  night, 
at  about  half-past  eight,  I  was  locked  in  my  little  cell 
with  a  can  of  cold  cocoa  and  a  piece  of  hard  bread,  having 
been  first  taught  by  a  sympathetic  warder  what  was  the 
most  comfortable  way  of  putting  down  a  plank  bed. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

PRISON    LIFE. 

It  is  strange  to  find  oneself  cut  off  suddenly  from  all  one's 
work  and  ordinary  interests  and  to  be  projected  into  a  new 
sphere  where  every  standard  of  value  is  completely  changed. 
Stranger  still,  how  quickly  a  normal  person  accommodates 
himself  to  such  an  altered  existence. 

Thus  it  was  with  me  in  Derry  Gaol.  It  was  no  avail  to 
me  there  that  I  could  draft  a  "  Conveyance,"  or  that  I 
knew  something  about  "  Contingent  Remainders  "  and 
quite  a  lot  about  the  "  Law  of  Contracts."  But  it  was  of 
vast  importance  that  I  learned  the  most  effective  way  of 
heating  my  milk  on  the  flickering  cell  gas-jet,  and  that  I 
was  able  to  make  my  wooden  spoon  serve  all  the  purposes 
of  a  knife  and  fork.  All  my  other  accomplishments,  too, 
paled  into  utter  insignificance  compared  with  the  one 
great  fact  that  I  found  that  I  could  write  doggerel  about 
the  life  and  humours  of  the  prison,  that  passed  from  cell 
to  cell  and  was  laboriously  transcribed  into  tattered  copy- 
books against  the  day  when  the  General  Release  would 
come  and  the  bc3^s  go  home  to  tell  their  friends  all  about 
their  varied  experiences. 

One  quickly  settles  down  to  the  dull  routine  of  prison, 
and  all  the  interests  and  causes  for  excitement  in  one's 
outside  existence  are  soon  replaced  by  the  incidents  that 
ripple  the  surface  of  that  monotonous  life  that  makes  up 
the  sum  of  one's  days  within  those  dreary  walls.  What 
commotion  there  was  if  the  long  hours  after  the  evening 
"  lock-up  "  were  broken,  say,  by  the  step  of  the  Governor 

29 


30  ON   MY   KEEPING" — AND   IN   THEIRS 

along  the  corridor,  and  you  heard  him  going  into  another 
prisoner's  cell  1  What  could  he  be  coming  about  ?  Was 
somebody  going  to  be  released  ?  And  the  tremendous 
interest  that  was  excited  amongst  us  by  seeing  one  of  our 
comrades  going  off  to  his  Court-Martial  !  How  we  clambered 
round  him  #n  his  return  and  listened  to  his  account  of  the 
proceedings  and  wondered  what  his  sentence  would  be  ! 

There  were  sixty  or  so  of  us,  untried  political  prisoners, 
in  Derry  at  the  time,  representing  several  counties  and 
many  walks  in  life.  We  were  professional  and  business  men, 
farmers,  artisans  and  labourers  ;  but  we  all  stood  for  the 
same  ideal,  and  a  fine  spirit  of  comradeship  linked  us  all 
together.  We  had  the  usual  prison  organisation  that  has 
proved  so  effective  in  many  jail  fights.  For  the  British 
Authorities  have  had  to  accept  the  awkward  fact  that  they 
cannot  put  more  than  two  Sinn  Feiners  together  without 
an  organisation  emerging.  Our  Commandant  was  Mick 
McCartan,  a  veterinary  surgeon,  and  a  very  nice,  genial 
fellow,  both  brainy  and  tactful. 

The  courage  and  cheerfulness  of  the  political  prisoners 
was  amazing.  Most  of  them  were  lads,  full  of  the  exuberance 
and  energy  and  the  restlessness  and  vitality  of  youth. 
What  that  rigid  routine  and  close  confinement  meant  for 
them  can  scarcely  be  imagined  by  a  person  who  has  never 
fe':t  the  peculiar  feeling  of  helpless  loneliness  that  is  wont 
to  overcome  a  prisoner  when  the  warder  turns  the  key 
in  his  cell  door  for  the  long  evening  and  night  "  lock  up." 
But  they  knew  that  they  were  serving  the  "  Dark  Rosaleen  " 
of  their  dreams,  and  their  love  for  her  made  all  things  easy. 

The  jails  of  Ireland,  England  and  Scotland  are  full  these 
times  of  young  men  of  this  type — clean  of  heart  and  pure 
of  soul,  brave,  truthful  and  high-minded.  Two  or  three 
years  ago  I  had  occasion  to  visit  a  peasant  home  in  County 
Antrim  on  some  legal  business.   The  owner  had  no  children, 


PRISON   LIFE  31 

but  a  nephew  of  his  wife  was  hired  with  them  as  a  servant 
and  would,  no  doubt,  be  adopted  by  them  and  inherit  the 
little  place.  I  had  walked  out,  and  the  lad  was  sent  to 
drive  me  home  on  his  master's  ear.  He  was  a  boy  of  about 
seventeen.  He  was  a  shy  lad  and  appeared  to  lead  a  very 
lonely  life,  as  the  homestead  was  situate  high  upon  a 
mountain  side.  But  he  had  read  some  Irish  history,  and 
he  was  full  of  the  dream  of  freeing  Ireland.  "  I  would  like 
to  get  a  chance  of  fighting  for  Ireland,"  he  told  me  naively, 
with  a  proud  look  in  his  eye,  and  a  flush  en  his  frank,  boyish 
cheek.  I  lent  him  some  books  about  Ireland  and  Irish  history, 
and  sometimes,  full  of  diffidence,  he  would  slip  in  to  me 
at  night  to  return  a  book  that  he  had  read  and  to  borrow 
another.  He  had  to  work  very  hard,  but  when  his  aunt 
and  uncle  had  gone  to  bed  he  would  sit  up  by  the  kitchen 
fire  devouring  what  I  had  given  him  to  read  and  watching 
the  strange  visions  that  shaped  themselves  for  him  in  the 
glowing  turf  embers,  Then  I  left  the  district,  and  lost  sight 
of  him,  but  I  often  wondered  how  he  had  developed. 

On  the  day  of  the  Ulster  Elections  I  was  standing  at  one 
of  the  polling  booths  at  Ballycastle  when  I  saw  the  lad's 
aunt  and  her  husband  coming  up  to  vote.  I  shook  hands 
with  them  eagerly,  and  asked  the  woman  how  her  nephew 
was.  She  evidently  thought  I  had  heard,  and  said  :  "  They 
sent  him  to  Preston,"  whilst  a  big  tear-drop  glistened  in 
her  eye.  I  understood  at  once  and  asked  :  "  How  long  did 
he  get  ?  "  To  which  she  replied  :  "  Eighteen  months." 
Poor  but  proud  and  in  a  sense — despite  the  ache  that  I 
know  is  in  his  heart  this  Summer's  day  on  which  I  write 
for  a  breeze  from  the  "  blue  hill  of  Antrim  "  and  a  look 
at  the  white  foam  of  the  waves  that  break  at  the  foot  of 
the  stately  promontory  of  Benmore — happy,  happy  boy  ! 
His  dream  has  come  true.  He  has  fought  and  is  now  suffering 
for  his  beloved  Ireland  I 


32  "ON   MY   KEEPING  " — AND  IN   THEIRS 

Nor  was  the  courage  that  I  saw  so  manifested  in  jail 
merely  the  product  of  youthful  irresponsibility.  For  it  was 
shared  by  prisoners  of  more  mature  years.  Men  like  Eamonn 
McDermott,  but  recently  mirried,  who  had  two  busi- 
ness houses  burned  down  maliciously  in  Derry  City, 
so  far  from  mumuring  only  thought  of  thanking  God  that 
they  were  called  upon  to  sufTei  so  little,  when  such  supreme 
sacrifices  were  demanded  from  others.  Old  Peter  McCannon 
of  Sligo  had  his  homestead  and  his  cornstacks  burned  to 
the  ground  by  the  British  armed  forces.  His  wife  had  to 
seek  shelter  in  a  labourer's  cottage.  Five  or  six  sons  were 
"  on  the  run,"  and  the  youngest,  Charlie,  a  boy  of  less  than 
18,  was  in  jail  with  him  in  Derry.  Peter  himself  suffered 
from  epileptic  fits,  and  his  health  was  so  bad  that  the 
authorities  were  most  anxious  to  get  an  excuse  to  send  him 
home.  It  was  pretty  clear  that  all  he  required  to  do  to  secure 
his  release  was  to  whisper  two  words,  "  Not  guilty" — thereby 
recognising  the  Court.  But  no  power  on  earth  could  have 
made  Peter  say  those  two  simple  words.  And  when  Charlie 
hurled  defiance  at  the  Court-Martial  before  which  the  pair 
were  brought  for  trial,  telling  them  that  he  waj  a  soldier 
of  Ireland  and  would  always  do  what  in  him  lay  to  destroy 
alien  rule  in  his  country,  the  old  man  acclaimed  his  son's 
"  treason  "  and  bade  them  do  their  worst  on  both  of  them. 

The  Governor  and  officials  in  Derry  in  my  time  showed 
us  every  consideration  and  treated  us  as  well  as  the  rules 
would  permit.  The  "  Politicals  "  have  broken  down  the 
old  rigid  system  in  all  the  Irish  prisons,  and  ameliorated 
the  conditions  even  for  the  ordinary  convicts.  I  imagine 
that  even  in  England,  where  large  numbers  of  Irish  prisoners 
have  been,  something  similar  has  occurred — though,  of 
course,  to  a  much  lesser  degree.  No  matter  what  rules  Home 
Secretaries  and  Chief  Secretaries  and  Prison  Boards  may 
make,  they  have  to  take  into  account  the  human  factor 


PRISON  LIFE  33 

in  their  application,  and  the  ordinary  warder  simply  could 
not,  even  if  he  were  disposed  to  try,  treat  the  sort  of  men 
with  which  Sinn  Fein  rills  the  jails  as  "  criminals." 

During  my  internment  in  Ballykinlar  Dr.  Hayes  told  me 
a  striking  story  illustrative  of  the  inroads  that  the  Sinn 
Feiners  were  wont  to  make  on  prison  rules.  He  was  sent 
to  Dartmoor  after  the  "  Easter  Week  "  insurrection  ;  and 
in  the  beginning  the  conditions  there  were  dreadful.  The 
discipline  was  of  the  sternest  kind.  You  dare  not  speak  to 
a  comrade,  your  cell  and  person  were  subjected  to  the  most 
degrading  searches  at  frequent  intervals,  and  everything 
was  done  with  the  regularity  of  clockwork.  After  the  Irish 
prisoners  had  been  about  five  weeks  there,  they  were  lined 
up  one  morning  in  the  lower  corridor,  prior  to  being  marched 
out  to  the  exercise  yard.  There  were  fifty  or  sixty  of  them 
all  standing  in  fine,  and  De  Valera  was  the  last  man .  Warders 
paced  up  and  down  lest  some  prisoner  should  dare  even 
to  whisper.  Suddenly  at  the  gate  of  the  corridor  above  them 
they  saw  Professor  Koin  MacNeil,  in  convict  garb  and  with 
his  hair  closely  cropped.  He  was  in  charge  of  two  warders 
and  was  about  to  be  brought  downstairs  to  be  placed 
amongst  the  others.  He  had  evidently  reached  the  prison 
from  Portland  or  some  other  gaol  on  the  preceding  night. 
The  gate  swung  open,  and  the  distinguished  convict  was 
escorted  down  the  stairs.  As  his  foot  touched  the  floor  of 
the  corridor  on  which  his  former  comrades  stood,  De  Valera 
jumped  out  from  his  place  at  the  rere  of  the  line.  He 
shouted  :  "  Company,  'shun  !  "  and  the  whole  hue  of  Irish 
prisoners  at  once  sprang  to  "  Attention  " — MacNeil  was 
still  the  Commander-in-Chief  of  the  Irish  Volunteers,  and 
it  was  their  tribute  to  him  as  such. 

Dr.  Hayes  remarked  that,  if  a  German  bomb  had  fallen 
on  Dartmoor  Prison  that  morning,  it  could  hardly  have 
created   more   consternation   than   De   Valera's   audacious 


34  ON   MY   KEEPING     — AND   IN   THEIRS 

act.  The  warders  seemed  stunned  for  a  few  moments  and 
hardly  knew  what  to  do.  Was  the  British  Empire  rocking 
at  its  foundations  that  anyone  should  so  dare  to  violate 
the  century  old  tradition  of  iron  discipline  that  had  tamed 
and  broken  so  many  turbulent  spirits  ? 

An  Irish  prison  is,  of  course,  very  different  from  a  place 
like  Dartmoor.  The  stern,  unbending,  cruel  official  of  the 
old  days  has  been  largely  superseded  by  a  person,  usually 
very  human  and  genial.  And,  of  course,  an  untried  prisoner 
such  as  I  was  is  not  subjected  to  prison  regime  in  the  real 
sense  of  the  word. 

Still  gaol  is  gaol,  no  matter  how  easy  the  conditions  are. 
It  dulls  your  brain,  deadens  your  senses,  and  humiliates 
you,  whilst  the  loneliness  and  helplessness  of  your  position 
are  galling.  Though  I,  as  it  were,  only  got  a  peep  at  the 
inside  of  a  prison,  still  that  peep  has  been  sufficient  to  awake 
in  me  what  I  believe  will  be  an  everlasting  feeling  of  active 
sympathy  with  all  to  whom  the  grating  of  those  keys  at 
the  evening  "  lock-up  "  brings  such  desolation  of  heart 
and  spirit ;  and  few  of  my  petitions  to  the  good  God  are 
more  heartfelt  than  the  one  that  is  so  apt  to  rise  to  my 
lips,  when  I  He  awake  at  night  with  the  peace  and  beatitude 
of  my  happy  home  enveloping  me  as  an  aura,  and  I  pray 
Him  to  comfort  all  that  turn  uneasily  on  their  plank  beds 
and  count  with  weary  hearts  the  hours  and  the  days,  or 
the  weeks,  or  months,  or  years  that  must  elapse  before  that 
fair  Moon  can  shine  on  them  as  freemen. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CHRISTMAS    DAY    IN    DERRY    GAOL. 

When  the  dreary  prison  bell  woke  me  on  Christmas  morning 
and  I  realised  where  I  was  and  the  day  that  had  come  I 
confess  that  I  really  felt  depressed  and  unhappy.  Visions 
of  a  wild  stampede  of  little  ones  in  long  white  nightdresses 
to  find  out  what  Santa  Claus  had  placed  in  the  stockings, 
of  the  walk  out  to  first  Mass  at  Glen,  bringing  back  to  me 
memories  of  how  wonderful  and  romantic  it  used  to  seem 
to  me,  as  a  child,  to  walk  to  the  "  chapel  "  in  the  dark  and 
see  it  all  lit  up  with  big  candles  and  shining  in  the  distance 
like  a  radiant  lamp  hung  between  the  ash  trees,  and  to  see 
the  Fife  and  Drum  Band,  with  their  blazing  torches, 
marching  along  the  road  playing  "  God  Save  Ireland " 
and  "  The  Wearing  of  the  Green  "  and  then  "  Faith  of  Our 
Fathers  "  three  times  round  the  chapel  before  they  went 
in  to  Mass,  of  all  the  kindly  faces  that  would  greet  me 
that  morning  with  their  "  A  Merry  Christmas  to  you  !  " 
and  of  all  that  Christmas  means  and  brings  to  us  whom  the 
good  God  has  privileged  to  live  in  holy  Ireland,  crowded 
before  my  mind's  eye.  Though  I  thought  that  the  fountain 
of  tears  had  long  since  dried  up  within  me,  I  found  that 
a  few  stray  drops  had  risen  to  my  eyelids,  when  big,  genial 
Warder  Byrne  unlocked  my  cell  and  with  a  hearty  "  A 
Happy  Christmas  and  many  of  them,  but  not  here  !  " 
turned  on  my  gas  so  that  I  might  have  light  to  dress  for 
Mass. 

I  expect  we  all  felt  much  alike  that  morning,  but  we  kept 

35 


36  "on  my  keeping**' — AND  in  theirs 

our  feelings  to  ourselves  ;  and  it  was  all  fun  and  merriment 
and  jokes  with  us  when  Commandant  MacCartain  called 
us  to  -  Attention  "  in  the  corridor  and  gave  us  the  "  Left 
turn  "  through  the  iron  gate,  and  down  to  the  little  prison 
church  for  Mass. 

Though  everything  else  was  so  different  for  us  from  what 
and  ordinary  Christmas  would  be,  in  the  church,  at  any  rate, 
we  were  at  home — just  as  we  would  have  been  had  we  heard 
our  Christmas  Mass  amid  the  pomp  and  grandeur  of  St. 
Peter's,  at  Rome,  or  in  the  candle-light  of  one  of  our  own 
little  country  chapels  ;  and  as  line  after  line  of  us — the 
Governor,  officials,  political  prisoners,  convicts  in  their 
prison  garb — knelt  together  at  the  altar- rails  to  receive 
the  Bread  of  Life,  one  realised  the  full  meaning  of  the 
catholicity  of  the  Catholic  Church,  and  how  she  is  the 
same  mother  to  the  prince  and  the  peasant,  the  Pontiff 
and  the  child,  the  governor  and  the  governed,  the  jailer 
and  the  jailed.  There  were  no  tears  once  we  knelt  before 
that  prison  altar.  It  was  all  joy  and  thankfulness  for  us 
then.  For  of  one  supreme  possession  the  tyrant  could  not 
deprive  us  ;  and  we  knew  that  the  prayers  that  would  go 
up  before  the  great  White  Throne  from  our  little  company 
that  morning  would  be  more  potent,  after  all,  than  all  the 
power  and  resources  of  the  British  Empire. 

At  the  afternoon  exercise  that  day  we  all  gathered  in  a 
corner  of  the  yard  and  had  a  concert  ;  and  it  was  strange 
to  hear  those  grim  prison  walls  re-echo  the  rebel  songs 
we  sang  and  the  fiery,  patriotic  poetry  that  we  declaimed. 

In  the  evening  our  Commandant  got  from  the  Governoi 
an  extension  of  "  Lock-up  "  time  to  half -past  seven  ;  and 
we  had  a  concert  in  the  "  Condemned  Cell,"  which  is  three 
times  as  big  as  an  ordinary  cell.  The  last  man  who  had  been 
hanged  out  of  it  was  John  Berryman  from  near  my  home 
and  I  made  my  companions  laugh  by  a  story  that  my  friend 


CHRISTMAS  DAY  IN  DBRRY  GAOL  37 

Willie  O'Kane,  the  solicitor  who  defended  him,  had  told 
me  about  his  last  interview  with  the  unfortunate  man. 

John  had  lived  on  a  little  farm  in  County  Derry  with  his 
brother  and  his  brother's  wife.  He  thought  he  was  not  being 
treated  well  by  the  others,  and  one  day  he  murdered  both 
the  brother  and  the  wife.  He  was  found  guilty  by  a  jury 
at  Derry  Assizes  and  sentenced  to  be  hanged,  but  a  petition 
was  sent  up  to  the  Viceroy  asking  for  a  reprieve.  When  the 
news  came  to  hand  that  "  the  law  must  take  its  course," 
Mr.  O'Kane  went  up  to  Derry  to  convey  the  evil  tidings 
to  his  client,  and  was  relieved  to  find  that  the  latter  took 
it  all  calmly  enough,  and  appeared  to  be  prepared  to  accept 
the  inevitable  in  a  proper  spirit. 

"  This  is  the  last  time  I'll  see  you,  John,"  said  the 
solicitor,  "  and  I  suppose  I  had  better  explain  to  you  what 
I  did  with  the  money  you  gave  me." 

An  ordinary  person  would  think  that  if  he  was  going  to 
be  hanged  next  week  it  would  not  be  of  much  interest  to 
him  to  know  what  it  had  cost  to  defend  him.  But  John 
Berryman  was  what  is  sometimes  called  "  an  Ulster  Scot," 
and  we  are  always  being  told  how  practical  these  canny, 
hard-headed  men  of  the  North  are.  So  my  friend  Willie, 
knowing  the  type  well,  thought  it  prudent  to  explain  every 
item  carefully. 

"  We  had  to  pay  a  special  fee  of  forty  guineas  to  Denis 
Henry,  K.C.,"  he  went  on,  "  on  account  of  coming  down 
to  see  the  place,  and  the  same  to  Patchell,  K.C." 

John  made  no  comment,  and  Willie  proceeded  :  "Besides 
we  had  to  have  a  map  made  to  explain  the  position  of  the 
house  and  the  laneway  for  the  jury,  and  that  cost  ten  guineas, 
including  the  surveyor's  expenses  to  Derry." 

Then  the  explosion  came.  John  who  had  received  calmly 
the  news  that  the  petition  for  reprieve  had  failed  and  that 
he  was  going  to  be  hanged  the  following  week,  at   once 


38  "on  my  keeping  u — AND  in  theirs 

became  wildly  excited  and  indignant.  "  Surely  to  Good- 
ness," he  exclaimed  in  real  distress,  "  Johnnie  Campbell, 
my  neighbour,  wudn't  charge  me  ten  guineas  for  drawing 
out  an  oul'  map  !  " 

Well,  if  John's  last  hours  in  that  cell  were  disturbed  by 
the  thought  of  having  to  pay  Johnnie  Campbell  ten  guineas 
"  for  drawing  out  an  oul'  map,"  we  made  up  for  them  by 
our  merriment  on  Christmas  night.  Before  the  week  had 
closed  Pat  Brehney  of  the  kindly  heart  and  the  winning 
smile,  all  brightness  and  fun  and  good  nature,  was  to 
receive  his  savage  sentence  of  seven  years  penal  servitude 
for  having  been  found  in  possession  of  ammunition,  and 
most  of  the  others  who  crowded  the  cell  have  since  been 
sentenced  to  long  terms  of  imprisonment.  But  no  Christmas 
party  could  have  been  merrier  than  ours  was  that  night. 
We  sang  of  love  and  Ireland,  joined  in  gay  choruses,  told 
stories  and  made  jokes,  and  listened  to  soul-stirring 
recitations. 

Nobody  entered  more  fully  into  it  than  my  friend  Smyth. 
He  was  a  poor  Orangeman  who  had  drilled  with  the  Ulster 
Volunteers,  but  he  had  been  found  trying  to  sell  a  revolver, 
and  so  was  arrested  by  the  military  and  put  in  amongst  us. 
He  was  a  soft,  innocent,  good-natured  soul,  with  the  usual 
"  Orange  "  prejudices,  and  for  a  day  or  two  he  was  very 
doubtful  about  his  company.  Then  I  took  him  in  hands, 
supplied  him  with  cigarettes  and  share  of  my  parcels,  and 
saw  that  he  was  made  as  much  at  home  as  possible.  In  a 
very  short  time  he  was  all-in-all  with  us  and  used  to  march 
round  the  yard,  leading  the  long  line  of  prisoners  that  stepped 
to  our  Commandant's  orders.  "  Mind  ye,"  he  said  to  me 
one  evening  proudly  as  we  stood  at  the  door  of  his  cell 
awaiting  the  supper  "  Fatigue,"  "  I'm  not  afeerd  to  walk  wi' 
the  Sinn  Feiners." 

"  The  Sinn  Feiners  are  not  as  bad  as  you  used  to   hear 


CHRISTMAS  DAY  IN  DERBY  GAOL         39 

them  represented  to  be  in  Portadown,  Smyth,"  somebody 
said.  Whereupon  Smyth  exclaimed  with  great  earnestness  : 
"  If  anybody  ivir  says  a  word  against  the  Sinn  Feiners,  or 

runs  them  down  in  my  presence,  by  my  sowl  I'll — I'll " 

he  did  not  know  what  was  bad  enough  to  say  in  protest 
against  such  conduct — "  I'll  have  him  arrested."  The 
threat  was  not  a  very  appropriate  one,  but  we  knew  what 
the  poor  fellow  meant. 

At  our  concert  on  Christmas  night  I  recited  some  doggerel 
that  I  had  written  about  the  prison,  and  when  we  were 
going  back  to  our  cells  Smyth  made  me  promise  that  I 
would  give  him  a  copy  of  it.  "  Because,"  he  explained, 
"  they  think  in  our  place  that  there's  nobody  but  corner- 
boys  in  gaol ;  but  I  want  to  let  them  see  there's  lamed 
men  here." 

Yet  the  hoary  fiction  is  trctted  out  that  there  are  two 
nations  in  Ireland,  as  if  any  other  country  could  produce 
a  type  like  Smyth  ! 

We  wound  up  our  concert  with  "  The  Soldiers'  Song  " 
and  we  sang  it  as  lustity  as  many  a  time  we  were  wont  to 
do  at  big  Sinn  Fein  musters  in  hall  or  on  hillside.  Then 
we  filed  off  to  our  cells  and  the  warder  came  down  the  line 
and  locked  us  up  with  a  kindly  "  Good-night  !  "  In  a  few 
minutes  the  "  Rosary"  was  re-echoing  along  the  corridor — 
we  used  to  say  it  in  groups  of  five  or  six  adjoining  cells. 
Then  the  lights  went  out,  and  with  a  prayer  on  our  lips 
that  that  was  the  last  Christmas  that  any  one  would  have 
to  spend  in  gaol  for  loving  Ireland,  we  tried  to  sleep  and 
forget. 

We  had  another  extension  on  New  Year's  night  and 
another  concert,  but  it  was  not  as  merry  as  the  first  one. 
For  we  missed  some  of  "  the  old  familiar  faces."  Poor 
Pat  Brehney  had  got  his  sentence  in  the  meantime,  and 
my  friend.  Pat  Agnew,  had  also  gone  upstairs  to  the  "  Hard 

BOSTON  COLLEGE  I4WUR7 
CHESTNUT  HILL,  MASS. 


46  "  ON   MY   KEEPING     — AND   IN   THEIRS 

labour  "  section  of  the  prison,  so  that  we  missed  his  delight- 
fully humorous  rendering  of  the  ballad,  "  Master  McGrath." 
But  we  had  a  good  deal  of  fun,  too,  and  we  laughed  as  gaily 
as  ever.  Four  days  later  a  number  of  us — MacDermott, 
Larkin,  MacCartan,  Bonner,  the  two  Gallaghers,  Haughey, 
Doris,  Scott,  my  brother  and  myself — were  suddenly 
called  out  of  the  exercise  yard  and  told  to  be  ready  in  the 
morning  to  travel  to  Ballykinlar  Internment  Camp.  I 
realised  that  it  was  a  heavy  blow  to  me,  as  no  doubt  it 
was  to  all  the  others,  for  a  long  internment  would  probably 
ruin  my  business,  and  my  financial  position  allowed  no 
margin  for  such  risks.  But  so  many  people  had  been  praying 
for  me  that  I  knew  that  everything  must  be  for  the  best. 
So  I  wrote  to  my  wife,  bidding  her  to  fear  not,  and  placing 
my  family  and  home  and  business  and  fortunes  in  the  keeping 
of  Our  Lady  of  Perpetual  Succour,  I  packed  my  bag  and 
got  ready  to  go  forth.  I  knew  that  Our  Lady  would  carry 
out  the  trust  that  I  had  imposed  on  her,  and  She  did ! 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

BALLYKINLAR. 

We  left  Derry  Gaol  in  the  dark  of  a  cold  Winter's  morning 
and  were  taken  by  train  to  Belfast,  and  then  across  the 
city  in  a  lorry  to  the  County  Down  Railway  Station, 
where  we  were  entrained  for  Tullmurry  Station,  which  is 
about  four  miles  from  Ballykinlar  Camp.  Our  escort 
belonged  to  the  Rifle  Brigade,  and  they  treated  us  very 
well.  We  were  not  handcuffed  during  any  portion  of  the 
journey,  we  were  allowed  to  visit  the  Refreshment  Room 
at  the  CD.  Station,  and  when  the  Belfast  mob  sought  to 
make  a  display  of  that  fine  sense  of  chivalry  of  theirs 
that  in  the  cases  of  later  batches  of  prisoners  resulted  in 
"  heroic  "  attacks  being  made  with  showers  of  bolts  and 
stones  on  defenceless,  handcuffed  men,  the  officer  promptly 
turned  his  bayonets  on  the  crowd.  Whereupon  they 
dispersed. 

Our  experiences  were,  therefore,  a  great  deal  pleasanter 
than  those  of  most  of  the  other  prisoners  whom  we  were 
afterwards  to  get  to  know  in  the  Camp.  Many  a  story  I 
heard  of  what  they  had  to  endure,  and  I  am  almost  as 
familiar  with  the  voyage  of  the  Heather  from  Cork  as  if 
I  had  travelled  on  her.  For  most  of  my  fcllow-hutsmen 
had  been  brought  up  from  Kilworth  Camp,  penned  like 
sheep  in  the  "  hold  "  of  that  vessel.  They  were  two  days 
on  the  journey,  during  which  time  they  got  nothing  to 
eat  except  a  few  "  dog  "  biscuits.  When  they  arrived  at 
the  Belfast  Docks,  the}'  were  treated  to  a  display  of  choice 
conduct  and  still  choicer  language  from  the  Queen's  Island 

4i 


42  ON   MY   KEEPING     — AND   IN   THEIRS 

rivetters,  and  from  what  Tom  Finnegan  calls  '"the  Cumann 
na  mBhan '  attached  to  Harland  and  Wolfe's "  that 
shocked  these  unsophisticated  Southerners  very  much, 
although  Ulstermen  like  myself  would  have  taken  it  as  a 
matter  of  course.  They  were  brought  by  train  to  Bally- 
kinlar  Halt,  and  marched  handcuffed  and  carrying  their 
baggage  overthe  two  orthree  miles  that  separated  the  station 
from  the  Camp.  Then,  after  a  long  wait  and  many 
formalities,  they  were  sent  into  bare  huts  on  a  bleak 
December  day  and  given  for  their  bedding  straw  so  damp 
that  for  several  nights  they  had  to  sleep  in  portion  of  their 
day  clothes.  How  some  of  the  more  elderly  men  survived 
all  they  came  through  seemed  nothing  short  of  a  miracle. 
That  fine  old  Irishman,  Dan  Fraher,  of  Dungarvan,  who  was 
almost  seventy  years  of  age,  got  weak  on  the  march,  but 
was  forced  on  by  a  cad  of  a  junior  officer  with  some  stupid, 
brutal  jibe  like  that  "if  he  were  behind  a  ditch  he  would 
be  active  enough,"  and  other  frail  men  were  treated  quite 
as  badly. 

My  friend  Hasset,  Surveyor  to  the  Waterford  County 
Council,  told  me  how  wretched  his  party  felt,  as  cold  and 
tired  and  hungry  they  neared  the  end  of  their  two  days' 
journey.  At  Belfast  they  had  heard  nothing  but  screams 
of  hatred  and  curses,  and  the  faces  that  scowled  on  them 
from  the  little  stations  on  the  CD.  Railway  were  as  black 
as  night.  Then,  as  they  stopped  at  one  station  before 
they  reached  the  Halt,  a  priest  got  out  from  another 
carriage,  and  as  he  passed  the  prisoners'  compartments 
he  turned  to  them  and  said  :  "  Dia  's  Muire  dhibh  !  "  It 
was  only  a  word,  and  he  passed  on  ;  but,  as  my  friend 
remarked  to  me,  that  quiet  greeting  and  the  smile  of  affec- 
tionate sjmipathy  that  accompanied  it  were  as  balm  to  a 
wounded  man  or  a  draught  of  clear,  cold  water  to  the 
parched  lips  of  the  traveller  in  the  desert. 


BALLYKINLAR  43 

Our  experiences  were,  of  course,  only  fun  compared  with 
what  these  prisoners  from  the  South  had  to  go  through  ; 
and  they  had  already  put  up  a  fight  for  proper  camp 
conditions.  So  that  when  we  arrived  things  were  going 
pretty  smoothly,  and  conditions  were  tolerable. 

One  thing  amused  me  very  much  on  our  arrival  at  the 
Camp.  We  were  handed  over  by  our  escort  to  a  camp  officer 
in  what  looked  like  some  sort  of  an  old  stable  outside  the 
wires.  We  had  been  driven  to  the  station  at  Derry,  had 
travelled  in  the  train  from  Derry  to  Belfast,  and  then 
had  made  the  journey  to  the  Camp,  all  without  handcuffs. 
But  now,  though  we  had  only  to  be  brought  across  a  road 
to  get  us  into  what  was  called  the  "  Cage  " — that  is  the 
barbed  wire  enclosure  in  which  the  prisoners  were  kept — 
the  officer  spent,  I  suppose,  half-an-hour  putting  handcuffs 
on  us  before  taking  us  across.  I  feel  grateful  to  that  officer, 
because  had  it  not  been  for  him  the  Irish  war  might  have 
ended  without  my  feeling  what  handcuffs  were  like.  A 
quiet,  respectable  solicitor  like  myself  will  probably  never 
get  the  chance  again  ;  and  I  want  to  be  able  to  thrill  my 
grandchildren,  when  they  come,  with  the  story  of  my 
manacles. 

Having  been  duly  handcuffed,  we  were  marched  into  the 
"  Cage,"  where  the  handcuffs  were  at  once  removed.  We 
were  brought  into  an  office  where  the  colours  of  our  eyes 
and  the  cuts  of  our  noses  were  solemnly  recorded  and 
questions  put  to  us  as  to  whether  we  were  married  or 
single,  and  if  married  whether  our  respective  wives  lived 
with  us  when  we  were  not  in  gaol,  and  so  forth.  Then, 
having  been  searched  and  deprived  of  such  dangerous 
weapons  as  British  currency  and  pocket  scissors,  we  were 
allotted  to  the  various  huts  to  which  we  were  to  go,  and  were 
at  length  free  to  enter  on  the  ordinary  life  of  the  Camp. 

Our  Camp  consisted  of  four  lines  of  huts  with  chapel, 


44  ON   MY   KEEPING     — AND   IN   THEIKS 

cook-house  and  dining-halls,  hospital,  etc.,  in  the  centre. 
Pat  MacCartan,  Tom  Larkin,  John  Bonner,  Owen  Gallagher 
and  myself  were  sent  to  Hut  19  C  line.  There  were  twenty- 
other  men  in  the  hut  already  from  Cork,  Tipperary  and 
Kilkenny,  and  our  five  made  the  full  complement  of  twenty- 
five.  The  huts  were  zinc  buildings  ;  our  beds  were  composed 
of  two  wooden  trestles  about  eight  inches  high  with  three 
boards  laid  on  top,  on  which  we  placed  our  bedding,  consist- 
ing of  a  mattress  and  bolster  packed  with  coarse  straw  and 
four  army  blankets  ;  and  the  other  furniture  comprised  a 
long  table,  three  or  four  forms,  some  shelving,  a  few  buckets, 
etc.,  and  a  stove. 

I  was  very  luck}'  in  my  hut,  as  my  fellow-hutsmen  were 
men  with  whom  it  was  a  pleasure  to  live.  Some  of  them — 
such  as  Paddy  Sullivan,  the  "  hut  leader,"  Jim  Lalor, 
Tom  Tracey,  Tom  Nolan  and  Jack  Fitzgerald — had  had 
a  fairly  extensive  acquaintance  with  British  prisons  and 
had  been  through  "  hunger  strikes  "  and  such  episodes, 
and  most  of  the  others  had  been  very  active  figures  in  the 
national  movement  in  one  way  or  another.  One  of  the 
most  striking  figures  in  the  hut  was  Pat  Rohan,  County 
Councillor  of  Ballina  (Tipperary),  a  man  of  very  great 
ability  and  high  ideals,  whose  constructive  mind  would  be 
a  most  valuable  asset  in  any  normally  governed  country, 
I  shall  always  be  inclined  to  forgive  Sir  Hamar  Green- 
wood portion  of  the  score  I  have  against  him,  inasmuch  as, 
when  it  was  deemed  necessary  in  the  interests  of  law  and 
order  in  Ireland  to  lock  me  inside  a  barbed  wire  cage,  he 
had  me  housed  with  men  of  such  high  character  and  kindli- 
ness as  my  friends,  William  Geary,  John  Creed,  Mick 
Dowling,  Bill  Condon,  Jer.  Mulvey,  Paddy  Guerin  and  Bill 
Sheehy,  not  to  speak  of  my  own  Ulster  comrades  and  the 
"  Young  Guard,"  consisting  of  Paddy  Holmes,  J.  Keating, 
J.  Egan,  Jim  Sharman,  Andy  Callaghan,  Mick  and  Nick 


BALLYKINLAR  45 

Murphy.  It  is  a  trial  to  anyone,  especially  to  a  person  who 
can  so  order  his  life  that  he  can  obtain  at  least  the  seclusion 
of  a  quiet  room  when  he  wants  to  work,  or  think,  or  read, 
or  rest,  to  be  forced  to  live  in  close  intimacy  with  a  large 
number  of  other  people  under  conditions  that  never  admit 
of  a  minute's  privacy.  The  time  you  want  to  write  or  read 
will,  perhaps,  be  chosen  by  some  of  your  youthful  companions 
for  a  game  of  "  leap  frog  "  or  a  wrestling  bout  in  the  hut, 
and  fate  may  decide  that  when  you  seek  to  assuage  the 
pain  cf  an  aching  tooth  by  throwing  yourself  on  your 
straw  mattress  somebody  near  you  will  feel  the  occasion 
opportune  to  learn  the  scale  on  the  riddle. 

But  though  this  sort  of  thing  is  a  necessary  concomitant 
of  communal  hut  life  and,  though,  no  doubt  the  nerves 
of  all  of  us  were  frayed  by  the  irksomeness  and  uncertainty 
and  monotony  of  our  long  internment,  it  was  wonderful 
how  well  we  all  got  on  together  in  Hut  19.  There  were  a 
spirit  of  give-and-take,  a  kindliness  and  generosity  and 
unselfishness  that  made  everything  as  easy  as  possible 
for  us. 

One  impression  was  deeply  marked  on  my  mind  by  my 
experiences  in  Hut  19  and  in  the  Camp,  and  that  was  the 
high  standard  of  civilisation  and  idealism  and  spirituality 
of  our  people.  The  whole  internment  system  is  thoroughly 
demoralising.  To  take  a  thousand  men  from  every  walk 
of  life  and  to  lock  them  together  in  a  cage,  where  they  cannot 
pursue  their  ordinary  work  and  duties,  where  everything  is 
regulated  for  them  like  clockwork,  and  all  the  necessaries 
of  life  provided  without  anxiety  on  their  part,  would  ruin 
most  people,  mentally,  physically,  and  probably  morally. 
But  our  Irish  prisoners  emerge  from  such  ordeals  unscathed. 

The  saving  of  them  is,  of  course,  first  their  religion,  and 
then  their  sense  of  patriotism.  The  mass  of  the  prisoners 
led   lives   of   great   piety  in   Ballykinlar;      The   prisoners' 


46 

chaplain,  Father  Mclister,  was  most  attentive  to  our 
spiritual  needs,  and  was  much  beloved  by  everybody.  We 
had  Mass  every  morning  and  the  Blessed  Sacrament  always 
in  the  Camp.  The  Rosary  was  said  in  the  huts  every  night, 
and  many  of  the  huts — perhaps  all  of  them — were  in  time 
formally  consecrated  to  the  Sacred  Heart.  The  contrast 
between  two  civilisations  could  not  be  more  strikingly 
illustrated  than  by  a  comparison  of  the  writings  on  the  walls, 
left  by  the  soldiers  of  the  British  Army  who  had  formerly 
occupied  the  Camp,  with  the  knowledge  that  one  might 
spend  a  twelve-month  amongst  the  prisoners  without  ever 
hearing  an  unseemly  word. 

Then  there  was  a  general  feeling  that  these  months  of 
internment  and  the  enforced  leisure  they  entailed  were  to 
be  held  in  trust  for  the  nation,  and  to  be  used  as  a  preparation 
for  the  constructive  work  that  we  felt  would  be  before  us 
in  a  free  Ireland.  So  that  instead  of  allowing  their  brains 
and  hands  to  decay  from  disuse,  most  of  the  prisoners 
sought  to  make  themselves  more  efficient  in  some  way. 
And  the  work  thereby  entailed  was  the  saving  of  them. 


CHAPTER    IX. 

CAMP    CONDITIONS. 

When  we  reached  Bally kinlar  on  the  5th  of  January 
conditions  were,  as  I  have  said,  tolerable  ;  but  the  other 
prisoners  told  us  that  during  the  first  two  or  three  weeks 
of  the  Camp  the  treatment  they  had  received  was  very- 
bad.  The  food  was  utterly  inadequate.  There  was  no 
canteen  and  the  prisoners  were  not  allowed  to  receive 
parcels.  One  man  described  to  me  his  feelings  when  he 
first  entered  the  "  cage."  He  had  come  up  on  The  Heather 
from  Cork,  and  arrived  at  the  Camp  famishing  with  hunger 
and  shivering  with  cold.  They  were  kept  for  a  very  long 
time  standing  in  the  "  stable  "  outside  the  wires,  during 
which  time  a  soldier  who  took  pity  on  their  wretched 
plight  was  forbidden  by  a  mean  little  creature  in  the  uniform 
of  an  officer  to  give  them  a  drink  of  water.  Then  they  were 
marched  into  the  "  cage  "  ;  and  when  my  friend  looked 
round  and  saw  bayonets"  and  barbed  wire  on  every  side 
and  a  crowd  of  starved-looking  men,  with  incipient  beards 
on  their  faces  and  mufflers  round  their  necks,  clambering 
round  them  to  know  if  they  had  any  cigarettes — or  "  e'er 
a  butt,"  as  the  query  was  put  by  a  chorus  of  Dublin  accents 
— he  turned  to  the  man,  to  whom  he  had  been  handcuffed, 
and  whispered  :  "  Lloyd  George  is  going  to  win  this  time  !  " 
Well,  Lloyd  George  did  not  win  ;  and  even  inside  the 
barbed  wire  cage  that  they  had  built  his  minions  had  to 
mend  their  manners.  The  prisoners  soon  set  up  their 
organisation,  and  under  the  spirited  leadership  of  their 
Commandant,    Patrick    Colgan,    ably    assisted    by    Vice- 

47 


48  *   ON   MY  KEEPING  " — AND  IN  THEIRS 

Commandant  Dominick  MacKay,  of  Clonmel,  and  the  other 
members  of  the  Council,  they  forced  the  military  authorities 
to  make  concessions  in  the  way  of  food  and  general  condi- 
tions that  enabled  us  to  get  through  our  period  of  detention 
fairly  comfortably.  Of  course,  there  were  complaints  all 
the  time  about  rations,  and  if  we  had  not  been  able  to 
supplement  them  by  parcels  from  our  friends  and  purchases 
at  the  canteen  we  might  have  been  hungry  enough  at  times. 
Personally  I  am  convinced  that  I  would  have  gone  to  pieces 
on  the  Camp  ration  ;  but  on  the  other  hand,  as  a  matter 
of  strict  fairness,  I  wish  to  record  the  fact  that  the  most 
energetic,  hard-working  and  one  of  the  most  useful  men 
in  the  Camp — my  friend,  Henry  Dixon,  of  Dublin — never 
took  anything  except  the  allowance  provided  by  the  military 
authorities,  and  was  still  thriving  when  I  left  in  May.  I 
should  say,  too,  that  the  British  Commandant,  Colonel 
Little,  seemed  really  anxious  to  do  the  best  he  could  for 
us  and  exerted  himself,  I  am  convinced,  to  secure  for  us 
every  right  to  which  as  prisoners  of  war  we  were  entitled 
by  international  usage.  But  he  was  hampered  all  the  time 
by  orders  and  limitations  of  his  authority  from  the  military 
G.H.Q.  and  Dublin  Castle. 

The  same  was  true  of  Colonel  Hely-Hutchinson,  usually 
designated  by  the  prisoners  "  Play  the  Game,"  who  used 
to  be  in  command  of  the  area,  and  of  Colonel  Ennis,  rather 
a  fine  old  type  of  soldier,  with  a  face  for  all  the  world  like 
a  statue  of  Julius  Caesar,  who  after  some  months  was  put 
in  general  charge  of  all  the  internment  camps. 

"  Play  the  Game  "  got  his  name  from  what  seemed  to 
be  his  favourite  phrase.  When  a  new  batch  of  prisoners 
arrived  at  the  Camp,  they  were  brought  up  before  him 
and  addressed  somewhat  thuswise  :  "  Now,  men,  I  under- 
stand that  you  are  soldiers,  and  I  intend  to  deal  with  you 
as  such  and  to  treat  you  as  prisoners  of  war.     It  is  my 


CAMP   CONDITIONS  49 

wish  that  your  time  here  should  be  pleasant  as  possible 
in  the  circumstances  ;  and  if  you  play  the  game  with  me 
111  play  the  game  with  you.  If  you  observe  certain  rules 
and  regulations  in  regard  to  the  Camp  and  carry  out  certain 
duties,  which  are  necessary  for  your  own  health  and  well- 
being,  you  will  have  no  trouble  from  us."    And  so  forth  I 

In  one  batch  of  prisoners  that  was  treated  to  this  address, 
there  was  an  unfortunate  member  of  the  Plymouth  Brethren 
or  some  such  evangelistic  organisation.  He  had,  no  doubt, 
been  arrested  by  mistake  owing  to  the  faulty  secret  service, 
work  on  which  the  military  have  had  to  rely  since  the 
old  R.I.C.  were  put  out  of  action. 

On  the  day  that  he  was  to  receive  his  lecture,  the  Colonel, 
after  he  had  delivered  the  "  Play  the  Game  "  portion  of 
his  speech,  went  on  to  say  :  "  Of  course,  there  may  be 
individual  cases  of  hardship  amongst  you.  Perhaps  some 
men  are  here  who  should  not  be  here.  But,  if  on  the  one 
hand  3^ou  are  soldiers  of  the  Irish  Republic  you  will  be 
prepared  to  suffer  for  the  cause  to  which  you  have  devoted 
yourselves  ;  whilst,  on  the  other  hand,  if  you  are  loyal 
subject?  of  the  British  Empire  you  will  also  be  willing  to 
put  up  with  the  inconvenience  of  being  here,  knowing  that 
this  round-up  has  been  deemed  necessary  by  those  respon- 
sible for  the  safety  of  the  Empire." 

Hereupon  the  distressed  evangelic  spoke  out  in  solemn 
tones  and  said  :  "  I  am  neither  a  soldier  of  the  Irish  Republic 
nor  do  I  bear  allegiance  to  earthly  empires  or  monarchs. 
I  only  serve  one  Master  and  the  only  army  to  which  I 
belong  is  the  Army  of  God  !  " 

Upon  which  somebody  else  interjected  :  "  Well,  you're  a 
devilish  long  way  from  your  barracks  here  !  " — which 
observation  so  affected  the  risibility  of  the  Colonel  that  he 
was  unable  to  continue  his  speech  and  walked  away  in 
hearty  laughter. 


50  "ON   MY   KEEPING" — AND   IN   THEIBS 

Colonel  Bnnis  seemed  to  have  a  healthy  contempt  for 
that  type  of  puppy  that  one  so  often  meets  with  in  the  garb 
of  a  junior  British  officer ;  and  it  used  to  afford  us  a  grim 
satisfaction  to  see  some  of  the  petty  little  bullies,  that 
loved  to  parade  their  power  before  us,  trotting  after  him 
on  inspection  as  meek  as  lap-dogs.  One  day  there  was  a 
fire  in  No.  2  Camp  and  a  fire  squad  turned  out  in  charge 
of  a  prisoner  named  Maclnernay.  Whilst  he  was  standing 
by,  directing  operations,  a  junior  officer  came  along  with 
an  escort  and  told  him  to  take  his  hands  out  of  his  pockets 
and  fall  in  with  a  bucket,  like  the  rest  of  his  men. 
Maclnernay  promptly  told  him  to  go  to  the  devil ;  and 
was  at  once  arrested  and  brought  out  before  Colonel  Ennis. 

The  officer  made  his  charge,  and  the  Colonel  asked  the 
prisoner  what  he  had  to  say  for  himself.  "  Oh,"  rejoined 
Maclnernay,  "  I  have  nothing  to  say  for  myself  ;  but  I 
want  to  put  in  a  word  for  this  young  man  " — pointing  to 
the  astonished  officer — "  He's  young,  Colonel,  and  he  may 
have  never  seen  a  fire  before,  and  so  lost  his  head.  But 
he'll  come  all  right,  Colonel,  he'll  come  all  right.  Don't 
punish  him." 

The  Colonel  looked  at  his  subaltern,  and  with  a  very 
amused  twinkle  in  his  eye  said  :  "  Take  this  man  back  to 
the  cage  !  " 

On  the  whole  the  senior  officers  with  whom  we  came  in 
contact  were  all  right  and  comported  themselves  as  soldiers 
and  gentlemen,  but  some  of  the  juniors  were  awful  bounders 
and  thorough  cads.  One  officer,  whom  we  used  to  designate 
"  Judas  "  because  it  sounded  like  his  real  name,  particularly 
distinguished  himself  in  this  respect.  But  even  men  of  this 
type  were  soon  put  in  their  place,  and  in  the  end  we  had 
very  little  trouble  with  them.  The  prisoners  made  it  clear 
that  they  were  going  to  take  no  bullying  from  them  ;  and 
both  Colonel  little  and  Colonel  Ennis  showed  themselves 


CAMP   CONDITIONS  51 

leally  disposed  to  deal  sternly  with  them,  if  they  exceeded 
the  bounds  of  duty  and  decorum.  So  that,  on  the  whole, 
our  relations  with  the  enemy  officers  were  fairly  good. 

After  the  Camp  opened,  there  was  some  trouble  over 
a  demand  on  the  part  of  the  British  officers  to  be  addressed 
as  "  Sir  "  at  Roll  Call.  Their  contention  was  that  they  were 
treating  us  as  prisoners  of  war  and  so  were  entitled  to  the 
courtesies  usually  extended  to  enemy  officers  in  such 
circumstances.  But  the  mass  of  the  prisoners  resented 
having  to  call  people  of  the  type  of  our  friend  "  Judas  " 
"  sir."  Eventually  we  got  round  the  difficulty  by  answering 
the  roll  in  Irish,  "  Annso."  Whether  it  was  that  this  was 
mistaken  for  "  In,  sir,"  or  that  they  did  not  wish  to  press 
a  fight  on  the  subject,  this  was  accepted  and  it  was  thus  we 
used  to  answer  during  my  stay  in  the  Camp.  Whilst  the 
"  sir "  question  was  still  a  bone  of  contention,  the  roll 
was  being  called  one  morning  in  the  hut  in  which  dwelt 
my  friend  Hubert  Wilson,  of  Longford. 

"  Wilson  Hubert,"  the  officer  read  out,  and  the  answer 
was  a  plain  "  Here." 

"  Here — what  ?  "  drawled  the  Lieutenant. 

"  Hear,  hear  !  "  said  Hubert  solemnly.  At  which,  to  the 
credit  of  his  sense  of  humour  be  it  said,  the  officer  laughed 
and  passed  on. 

The  way  in  which  our  men  stood  up  to  these  subalterns 
pleased  the  poor  "  Tommies  "  immensely. 

"  These  officers  have  the  wind  up,"  said  a  little  Cockney 
soldier  one  day  to  a  prisoner.  "  If  we  ask  them  for  anything 
we  get  seven  days  in  the  clink  for  cheek,  but  you  people 
can  get  anything  you  want.  My  shirt's  in  tatters,  and  I 
bet  you,  yours  is  not." 

"  Oh,  no,"  admitted  the  prisoner,  "  I  got  two  good  shirts 
off  them." 

"  Yes,"  continued  the  soldier,  "  and  look  at  the  good 


52  "on  my  keeping  "-—and  in  theirs 

boots  you're  wearing !  All  these  hills  are  filled  with  Sinn 
Feiners  according  to  the  officers,  and  they're  going  to  sweep 
down  some  night  and  clear  the  Camp.  They're  afraid  to 
refuse  you  fellows  anything  ;  and  we  only  get  what  you 
won't  take.  You  are  the  prisoners.  We're  only  the  Tommies. 
The  wind's  up  with  the  blighters,  and  be  sure  and  keep  it 
up." 

It  must  have  been  rather  an  eye-opener  to  the  "  Tommies  " 
to  see  defenceless  men  in  a  barbed  wire  cage,  surrounded 
with  guns  and  bayonets,  able  to  keep  in  their  own  place 
the  little  bullies  of  officers  of  whom  the  soldiers  were  so 
much  afraid.  It  should  have  had  a  stiffening  effect  on  their 
morale  ;  but  I  expect  that  the  British  army  is  very  largely 
made  up  of  types  like  that  terrible  fellow,  the  English 
workingman,  who  is  always  talking  about  the  awful  things 
he  is  going  to  do,  but  which  he  never  does.  I  have  been 
hearing  all  my  life  about  the  coming  revolution  in  England, 
but  I  don't  expect  to  live  to  see  it.  When  the  British  Empire 
does  break  up,  the  blow  will  come  from  some  place  outside 
England. 


CHAPTER    X, 

SOME    CAMP    NOTABLES. 

InsidK  the  barbed  wire  the  running  of  the  Camp  was  very 
largely  in  our  own  hands.  We  had  our  own  government, 
our  own  military  and  police  forces,  our  own  courts,  our 
own  post  office,  and  our  own  currency.  In  fact  we  had, 
as  somebody  put  it,  "  Home  Rule  within  the  Empire." 
In  addition  to  the  Commandant  and  Vice-Commandant, 
other  prominent  Camp  officials  were  the  Quartermaster 
(Tom  Meldon),  the  Adjutant  (Seumas  Ward),  the  Provost- 
Marshal  (Hassett,  afterwards  Hickey),  the  Postmaster 
(Crowley),  and  the  Court-Martial  Brehons  (Messrs.  O'D&a 
and  Nicholls).  Other  prominent  figures  in  the  Camp  govern- 
ment were  Dr.  Higgins,  of  Maryborough  ;  P.  Hogan,  of 
Ijoughrea,  solicitor,  who  is  now  one  of  the  T.D.'s  for  Galway  ; 
Tom  Tracey,  of  Kilkenny ;  and  the  one  and  only  Barney 
O'Driscoll,  of  Skibbereen. 

The  mention  of  Barney's  name  evokes  so  many  memories 
that  I  cannot  proceed  with  these  discursive  memoirs  without 
devoting  a  paragraph  to  himself.  One  of  the.  most  firmly 
held  of  the  convictions  that  I  carried  away  from  Ballykinlar 
was  that,  despite  the  popular  fallacy  to  the  contrary,  there 
is  far  less  humour  south  of  the  Boyne  than  there  is  in  the 
North  of  Ireland.  It  used  to  amuse  me  to  hear  my  dear 
friend,  Henry  Dixon,  affirm  in  all  seriousness  that 
Ulster  people  had  no  sense  of  humour,  whereas  there 
was  more  fun  in  the  wee  finger  of  our  fellow-prisoner, 
Daney  McDevitt,  of  the  Falls  Road,  Belfast,  than  in  four- 

53 


54  "on  my  keeping" — AND  in  theirs 

score  of  Munster  men.  But  Barney  O'Driscoll  might  have 
been  born  in  "  the  Six  Counties/'  he  had  such  an  eye  for 
the  ridiculous.  In  fact,  his  sense  of  fun  was  liable  to  run 
away  with  him  ;  and  he  introduced  such  hilarity  into  the 
proceedings  of  a  Public  Boards'  Association,  that  had  its 
origin  in  the  praiseworthy  desire  of  Henry  Dixon  and 
O'Grady,  from  Clare,  to  have  the  imprisoned  members  of 
public  boards  do  some  constructive  thinking  during  their 
incarceration,  that  it  came  to  an  untimely  end.  He  was 
a  most  ingenious  debater,  and  was  sure  to  liven  up  any 
discussion.  Thus,  one  evening,  that  we  were  discussing  a 
paper  on  Onion  Growing  that  had  been  read  at  a  meeting 
of  the  Camp  Farmers'  Union  by  a  Mr.  Hogan,  Barney 
commented  on  the  assertion  of  the  lecturer  that  the  skin 
of  a  vegetable  is  practically  waterproof,  in  this  fashion  : 
"  If,  as  Mr.  Hogan  says,  the  skin  of  a  vegetable  is  water- 
proof, how  the  devil  did  all  the  water  get  into  the  potatoes 
that  are  served  out  to  us  in  this  Camp  ?  " 

In  addition  to  being  a  humorist,  however,  Barney  had  a 
very  short  temper,  and  an  awful  command  of  explosive 
language.  He  used  to  be  in  charge  of  the  distribution  of 
parcels  along  with  Messrs.  Holt,  Mooney,  Bartley  and  Sinnott; 
and  whilst  the  crowd  of  eager  prisoners  pushed  and  jostled 
each  other  in  the  distributing  room  and  clambered  round 
the  sorters,  Barney's  language  was  what  Bret  Harte  would 
describe  as  "  frequent  and  painful  and  free."  I  never  had 
the  pleasure  of  meeting  Barney  outside  the  wires,  and  I 
don't  know  if  he  wears  a  beard  in  ordinary  life,  but  he  had 
one  in  Bahykinlar  that  suggested  a  certain  Biblical  character 
to  a  lad  in  my  hut.  My  friend,  Paddy  Holmes,  had  evidently 
been  the  victim  of  Barney's  wrath  at  a  parcel  distribution, 
for  one  night  he  remarked  as  we  sat  round  our  stove  : 
"  Wouldn't  that  Barney  O'Driscoll  mind  you  of  Judas, 
although  I  never  saw  the  man  ?  " 


SOME   CAMP   NOTABLES  55 

The  conversation  took  another  turn,  and  about  half-an- 
hour  later  we  were  discussing  cinema  pictures.  Suddenly- 
Paddy  broke  in  on  the  discourse  with  the  exclamation  : 
"  I  knowed  I  saw  him  somewhere  !  " 

"  Saw  who  ?  "  we  inquired,  in  amazement  at  Paddy's 
sudden  outburst. 

"  Saw  Judas  Iscariot,"  he  responded.  "  I  saw  him  in 
the  pictures  of  the  Passion  Play  at  Mallow." 

Another  notable  figure  in  the  life  of  the  Camp  was  Dick 
Davis,  who  was  in  charge  both  of  the  church  and  the  bath- 
house. Dick  was  a  most  loveable  character,  very  zealous 
and  earnest,  who  had  behind  him  a  splendid  record  of 
service  for  Ireland.  He  was  sentenced  to  death  after  "  Easter 
Week  "  and  endured  the  horrors  of  penal  servitude  for  a 
time. 

Like  all  men  of  intense  sincerity  he  was  liable  to  get  very 
hot  in  argument,  and  the  Camp  idlers,  of  whom  I  was  one 
of  the  many,  used  to  enjoy  hearing  him  engage  in  controversy 
with  one  of  his  protagonists.  He  had  tremendous  faith  in 
the  virtues  of  cold  baths,  Co-operation,  and  I  think  it  was 
the  South  Dublin  Union,  of  which  he  was  a  member ;  and 
all  these  objects  of  his  love  furnished  fruitful  themes  for 
discussion. 

We  were  supposed  to  get  hot  baths,  but  Dick  was  such 
a  believer  in  cold  ones  that  he  was  blamed  for  keeping  the 
temperature  of  the  hot  ones  he  supplied  as  near  to  zero 
as  possible.  The  satiric  artists  in  our  little  community  made 
great  capital  out  of  this  fact,  and  all  over  the  Camp  you 
would  see  drawings  of  bathers  with  hatchets  trying  to 
break  the  ice  on  what  was  described  by  the  artists  as 
"  Dick  Davis's  hot  baths." 

He  was  at  his  best  as  an  advocate  for  Co- Operation 
and  was  always  ready  to  break  a  sword  in  defence  of  that 
system.  One  of  the  pictures  that  I  have  stored  away  in  that 


56  "on  my  keeping" — AND  in  theirs 

portion  of  my  brain  in  which  I  keep  my  mental  images 
is  that  of  Dick,  with  the  chapel  bell  in  his  hand  which  he 
had  taken  out  to  ring  for  Benediction,  engaged  in  animated 
discussion  with  little  Daney  McDevitt,  the  able  and  aggres- 
sive Belfast  socialist — both  talking  at  the  rate  of  a  hundred 
words  a  minute  and  each  very  excited — whilst  the  rest  of 
us  stood  around  and  cheered  impartially  at  every  good 
shot  that  was  landed  from  either  side. 

As  for  the  South  Dublin  Union,  its  merits  were  so  often 
recited  for  us  at  our  Public  Boards'  Association  meetings 
that,  with  that  wicked  human  tendency  to  jealousy-  of 
superior  virtue  that  is  in  us  all,  we  used  to  rejoice  secretly 
at  the  irreverent  manner  in  which  Barney  O'Driscoll  was 
wont  to  talk  of  the  august  body  when  he  rose  to  controvert 
one  of  Dick's  arguments. 

The  internal  government  of  the  Camp  was  entirely  a 
military  one.  It  had  all  the  merits  and  some  of  the  faults 
of  military  governments  everywhere,  but  it  did  its  work 
very  well  on  the  whole  and  enforced  a  discipline  which, 
if  stern,  was  really  necessary  for  the  well-being  of  the 
Camp  and  the  advancement  of  the  cause  for  which  we 
all  suffered.  like  all  governments,  of  course,  it  had  its 
critics  ;  and  the  civilian  internees  at  times  were  inclined 
to  chafe  at  the  rigid  discipline  to  which  they  were  subjected. 

"  When  a  letter  is  stopped  on  you  in  this  Camp,"  said  a 
prisoner  to  me  very  indignantly  on  one  occasion,  "  you 
don't  know  whether  it  was  done  on  you  by  the  English 
or  by  the  Prussians."  Thenceforth  I  used  to  distinguish 
between  the  enemy  Commandant,  and  our  own  thus : 
One  was  the  English  Commandant  and  the  other  was  the 
"  Prussian." 

In  some  respects  our  government  showed  itself  lacking 
in  vision,  especially  in  the  matter  of  propaganda,  which 
was  almost  wholly  neglected,  its  whole  idea  in  that  regard 


SOME   CAMP   NOTABLES  57 

seeming  to  be  to  prevent  it  being  stated  by  any  prisoner 
that  conditions  were  even  tolerable.  As  if  the  fact  of  three 
thousand  men,  untried  and  even  uncharged,  being  taken 
away  from  their  homes  and  avocations  and  kept  in  a  barbed 
wire  cage  for  months  was  not  the  real  grievance,  and  as 
if  our  case  was  in  any  way  weakened  because  we  were  not 
starved  to  death  as  well ! 

We  were  very  lucky  in  our  Commandants.  Patrick  Colgan 
held  the  office  until  the  time  of  the  Strike,  about  which  I 
shall  have  something  to  say  hereafter,  and  when  he  left 
the  Camp  Joe  McGrath,  T.D.,  assumed  the  office.  Colgan 
was  a  very  fine  fellow,  indeed — straightforward,  brave, 
courteous  and  brainy.  McGrath  was  not  any  abler,  but 
he  was  a  man  of  wider  experience  and  riper  judgment, 
and  proved  himself  a  great  administrator  in  very  difficult 
circumstances.  What  I  liked  especially  about  Joe  McGrath 
was  his  moral  courage.  Once  he  made  up  his  mind  as  to 
the  propriety  of  any  course  of  action  he  pursued  it  un- 
flinchingly, whether  it  was  popular  or  the  reverse.  He  was 
never  out  for  the  applause  of  the  crowd.  In  an  Irish  intern- 
ment camp  one  might  be  tempted  to  indulge  in  cheap  heroics 
in  order  to  win  the  cheers  of  his  fellow-prisoners,  but  McGrath 
never  undertook  a  fight  unless  a  principle  was  involved 
and  unless  he  was  satisfied  that  it  was  in  the  best  interests 
of  the  men  and  the  country.  When  firmness  was  really 
required  nobody  could  be  firmer  ;  but  if  diplomacy  appeared 
to  him  to  be  the  most  effective  weapon  in  the  particular 
circumstances  he  was  always  ready  to  use  it.  In  short,  he 
was  a  strong  man  in  the  real  sense  of  the  word,  not  the 
sham  sort  of  strong  man — and  there  are  many  such  in  Ireland 
— that  acquires  the  reputation  by  reason  simply  of  big  talk 
and  bad  manners.  "  Civility  costs  you  nothing/'  as  the 
sergeant-major  in  the  Cork  Dentention  Barracks  used  to 
say  with  truth.  A  man  can  be  quite  courteous  without  being 


58  "on  my  keeping" — AND  in  theirs 

any  less  firm  and  determined  :  and  even  when  you  are  dealing 
with  an  open  and  avowed  enemy  you  are  in  much  stronger 
position  if  you  adopt  towards  him  a  dignified  attitude. 

I  shall  always  have  great  confidence  in  the  sound  sense 
of  any  Irish  government  of  which  Joe  McGrath  is  a  member. 

I  cannot  close  this  account  of  prominent  Camp  Officials 
without  paying  tribute  to  Dr.  Hayes,  T.D.,  who  was  in 
charge  of  the  hospital  for  us  during  the  greater  part  of  my 
internment.  Hayes  is  a  man  of  beautiful  character — as 
kind  as  a  mother,  as  simple  as  a  child,  and  as  humble  as 
a  saint.  There  is  no  need  to  refer  to  his  courage  and  his 
ardent  patriotism,  for  his  "  Easter  Week  "  record  speaks 
for  itself.  But  the  man  is  so  unassuming,  that  one  might 
spend  his  life  with  him  without  discovering,  except  by 
accident,  that  he  had  ever  done  or  risked  anything  out  of 
the  common.  It  meant  a  great  deal  for  the  health  and  happi- 
ness of  the  Camp  to  have  a  man  of  his  type  in  the  hospital ; 
and  whatever  other  grievances  we  may  have  against  our 
old  friend,  Sir  Hamar  Greenwood,  we  must,  at  least,  be 
thankful  to  him  for  that,  when  he  rounded  the  rest  of  us  up, 
he  took  care  to  arrest  Dr.  Hayes  and  lock  him  in  along  with 
us. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

OUR    LINE    CAPTAINS. 

The)  most  important  executive  officers  of  our  government 
were  the  Line  Captains.  Bach  line  constituted  a  Company 
and  had  a  captain  in  charge  of  it.  I  belonged  to  Line  or 
Company  "  C,"  which  comprised  ten  huts  in  each  of  which 
there  were  supposed  to  be  twenty-five  men.  Thus,  our 
Company  included  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  prisoners. 

The  Line  Captain  was  responsible  for  the  discipline  of  his 
line,  and  had  to  see  that  the  huts  were  kept  clean  and  that 
the  hut  leaders  carried  out  the  duties  imposed  on  them 
and  their  hutsmen  both  by  our  own  Commandant  and  by 
the  military.  The  line  letters  went  through  the  Line  Captain 
to  and  from  the  Postmaster  who  received  or  handed  them, 
as  the  case  might  be,  to  the  proper  military  official.  All 
complaints  and  applications  also  went  through  the  Line 
Captain  to  the  military  officer  in  charge  of  the  Line.  Each 
day  we  were  inspected  by  the  British  Line  officer,  and  our 
Line  Captain  accompanied  him  on  his  round.  He  also 
accompanied  both  the  British  and  our  own  Commandants 
when  they  made  their  periodic  inspections. 

We  were  not  allowed  British  money  in  the  Camp — for 
fear,  I  suppose,  that  we  might  get  too  friendly  with 
"  Tominie."  Instead  we  were  given  "  chits  "  for  the  cash 
that  was  taken  from  us — that  is,  printed  slips  with  the 
values  of  various  coins  marked  on  them.  These  were 
negotiable  in  the  Canteen  and  passed  current  inside  the 
"  cage  "  ;  and  on  release  they  were  exchangeable  for  money 

50 


60  "ON    MY   KEEPING     — AND   IN   THEIRS 

of  an  equal  face  value.  If  cheques  or  postal  orders  were 
sent  into  the  Camp,  the  military  had  them  cashed,  and 
"  chits  "  to  the  amount  were  given  to  the  prisoners  entitled. 
These  distributions  of  money  took  place  at  regular  intervals 
at  the  Line  Captain's  hut ;  and  he  and  the  "  khaki  "  Line 
Officer  checked  the  figures  together  on  these  occasions.  In 
the  beginning  a  penny  for  each  book  of  "  chits  "  (worth  5s.) 
was  deducted  from  our  moneys  to  pay  for  the  printing  of 
the  books  ;  but  after  a  long  controversy  between  the  English 
and  what  my  comrade,  John  Bonner,  called  the  "  Prussian  " 
Commandants  this  practice  was  abandoned,  and  we  were 
paid  in  full. 

The  four  Line  Captains  were  Messrs.  Nolan,  Fitzgerald, 
O'Mahony  and  John  Cooney.  They  all  did  their  work  very 
well ;  but  I  liked  our  own  officer  best.  P.  C.  O'Mahony  is 
a  man  of  culture,  with  a  wide  knowledge  of  the  world,  and 
a  great  deal  of  natural  ability.  He  is  a  fine  Irish  speaker  and 
is  widely  read  in  both  languages.  He  has  a  constructive 
mind  ;  and  having  a  keen  realisation  of  the  real  and  difficult 
work  that  lies  before  us  in  Ireland  when  we  do  achieve  our 
freedom,  he  exerted  himself  in  the  Camp  to  secure  that 
our  enforced  leisure  should  be  availed  of  to  make  us  more 
efficient  both  as  soldiers  and  citizens.  He  combines  very 
largely  the  qualities  both  of  a  good  fighting  man  and  a 
good  negotiator,  and  it  was,  perhaps,  due  to  his  tact  and 
diplomacy  that  no  serious  trouble  of  any  kind  ever 
developed  in  our  Company.  We  lost  him  after  a  time,  as 
he  insisted  on  following  his  own  hut  down  to  No.  2  Camp, 
when  it  was  removed  thither  ;  but  he  was  replaced  by  a 
man  no  less  popular  than  himself— namely,  Joe  Murtagh, 
from  Dublin,  a  fine  chess  player  and  in  every  way  a  charming 
fellow  with  a  good  sense  of  humour. 

I  have  only  one  grievance  against  Captain  Murtagh,  and 
that  is  this.    In  the  early  days  of  the  Camp  we  were  only 


OUR  LINE   CAPTAINS  6l 

getting  a  limited  number  of  newspapers,  and  it  would  some- 
times be  a  whole  day  before  you  could  get  a  peep  at  the 
Freeman  or  Independent.  Owing  to  my  grave  and  revered 
character  and  widening  girth  and  advancing  years,  I  had 
been  getting  off  with  all  "  fatigues  "  in  my  hut.  One  day 
Murtagh  came  along  and  said  :  "I  want  two  men  to 
volunteer  for  paper  fatigue." 

The  name  sounded  attractive  and  I  offered  my  services 
at  once.  "  This  will  give  me  a  fine  chance  of  showing  the 
lads  that  I  am  ready  to  do  my  bit  as  well  as  anybody  else," 
I  said  to  myself,  "  and  this  is  the  very  job  for  me!"  I 
thought  the  duty  would  be  to  get  the  newspapers,  when 
they  came  in,  and  then  distribute  them  round  the  huts. 
Tell  it  not  in  Geth,  publish  it  not  in  the  streets  of  Ascalon  ; 
but  what  was  at  the  back  of  my  head  was  the  idea  that  I 
would  get  first  read  of  the  Independent  ! 

When  I  reported  at  the  place  assigned,  I  found  that 
"  paper  fatigue  "  consisted  in  going  over  the  whole  Camp 
to  pick  up  pieces  of  paper,  butts  of  cigarettes,  and  old 
match-boxes,  etc.  Jim  I^alor  had  volunteered  along  with 
me  for  the  duty,  and  we  confessed  to  each  other  in  our 
tribulation  that  we  had  been  both  under  the  same  impression 
as  to  the  nature  of  the  duty  expected  from  us.  To  complete 
our  discomfiture,  we  were  received  with  roars  of  laughter 
when,  as  sore  from  stooping  as  if  we  had  been  pulling  flax, 
we  returned  to  our  hut ;  and  Jerry  Mulvey  finished  us  of! 
by  the  exultant  exclamation  :  "  It  was  great  to  see  the 
two  cutest  men  in  the  hut  done  !  " 

I  determined  never  to  volunteer  for  any  other  "  fatigues  " 
until  I  had  learned  the  real  character  of  the  work. 

Captain  O'Mahony  dwelt  in  Hut  n,  which  we  used  to  call 
in  our  line  "  the  Headquarters."  A  lot  of  other  very 
important  functionaries  were  housed  there,  too — Hassett, 
the     Chief     of     Staff ;     Seumas     Ward,     the     Adjutant ; 


62  "ON   MY  KEEPING  " — AND  IN   THEIRS 

Maclyoughlin  also  of  the  Commandant's  Staff,  and  various 
police  and  other  officers.  Lukeman,  of  the  Kilkenny  Gas 
Works,  a  great  talker,  was  the  "  Hut  leader." 

Human  nature  is  very  much  alike,  both  inside  and  outside 
barbed  wire  cages,  and,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
humble  denizens  like  myself  of  other  huts  envied  the 
exalted  position  of  Hut  n  and  its  inhabitants.  We  made 
all  sorts  of  unjust  accusations.  We  said  that  they  never 
passed  on  the  newspapers  until  every  man  in  their  own  hut 
had  read  them  ;  and  that  in  the  distribution  of  the  clothes, 
etc.,  that  Were  handed  out  by  the  military,  the  Staff  always 
looked  after  itself  first.  A  lot  of  the  Hut  n  men  were  from 
Dungarvan,  where  the  Cumann  na  mBan  girls  must  be 
great  cooks  and  cake-makers  ;  and  it  used  to  make  our 
mouths  water,  as  the  saying  is,  to  hear  the  tales  that 
circulated  along  the  line  about  the  sumptuous  feasts  that 
were  wont  to  take  place  at  the  "  Headquarters."  To  play 
up  to  the  jealousy  of  the  underdogs  I  wrote  the  following 
doggerel,  which  was  sung  in  fine  style  to  the  air  of  "Cockles 
and  Mussels"  by  my  fellow-hutsman,  John  Creed,  and 
became  very  popular  in  our  Company  : — 


In  sweet   Ballykinlar, 

If  you  are  a  "  Shinner," 
And  the  Fates  they  ^are  kindly — or  even  so,  so, 

In  famed  Hut  Eleven, 

You're  almost  in  Heaven 
With  the  Senior  Iyine  Captain,  alive,  alive,  oh  ! 

Chorus  : 
With  the  Senior  Iyine  Captain,  alive,  alive,  oh  ! 


OUR  LINE  CAPTAINS  63 

II. 

It's  "  P.C."  we  greet  him, 

That  shows  that  we  treat  him 
With  kindly  affection,  I'd  have  you  to  know. 

He's  martial  and  zealous, 

And  makes  "  Kiltie  "  jealous, 
When  he  comes  on  inspection,  alive,  alive,  oh  ! 


in. 

In  huts  more  plebeian, 

Perhaps  you'd  be  seein' 
Things  done  in  a  manner  unseemly  and  low 

But  at  "  the  Headquarters," 

Where  dwell  "  C.'s  "  true  martyrs, 
It's  all  styte  and  finish — alive,  alive,  oh  ! 


IV. 

You  don't  go  to  the  rooms 

Where  the  commonplace  coons 
Get  dinners  of  beans  interspersed  with  pig's  toe  ; 

But  you  dine  a  la  carte 

In  a  style  that's  quite  smart, 
Whilst  you  toast  the  bold  Captain— alive,  alive,  oh  ! 


v. 

It's  in  that  famous  hut 

That  your  money  you  get, 
And  the  rate  of  exchange  is  exceedingly  low. 

And  when  the  Staff's  dressed 

In  pants  of  the  best 
A  few  pass  to  others — alive,  alive,  oh  ! 


64  "on  my  keeping  " — AND  in  theirs 

VI. 

For  the  papers  each  day 

You  have  nothing  to  pay  ; 
For  all  the  Line  journals  are  there  in  a  row. 

And  not  till  you're  done, 

Are  they  ever  passed  on, 
To  the  other  poor  devils — alive,  alive,  oh  1 


VII. 

In  that  hut  there's  a  Yankee 

And  teachers  quite  swanky, 
A  town  clerk  and  draper  and  hard-working  Crowe. 

There's  a  Staff  Chief  and  Ad. 

And  sergeants — a  squad — 
Are  there,  thick  as  midges — alive,  alive,  oh  ! 

VIII. 

And  Iyukeman,  that  lights 

The  Cats'  Town  at  nights— 
It's  he,  the  Hut  Leader,  which  gives  it  a  glow, 

For  though  closed  in — alas  ! 

He's  still  full  of  gas, 
And  he  gives  it  out  freely— alive,  alive,  oh  ! 

IX. 

Then  here's  to  Eleven, 

That  wee  bit  of  Heaven,    . 
That  lightens  the  gloom  of  this  "  compound  "  of  woe  ; 

And  when  under  arrest, 

You  should  all  do  your  best, 
To  live  with  Line  Captains — alive,  alive,  oh  ! 


CHAPTER    XII. 

A    TRAINING     CAMP. 

The  nature  of  the  "  round  up  "  that  filled  Ballykinlar  was 
such  as  to  demonstrate  in  a  very  striking  manner  the 
stupidity  of  the  British  military  authorities  in  Ireland  and 
the  utter  helplessness  of  their  Intelligence  Department.  It 
would  be  idle  to  deny  that  they  got  a  number  of  very  good 
men  in  the  course  of  their  arrests  ;  but  if  their  sole  objective 
was,  as  they  said,  to  break  up  the  I.R.A.,  they  had  a  lot  of 
us  in  custody  that  were  not  worth  the  expense  involved  in 
our  capture  and  maintenance  and  guarding. 

A  large  number  of  the  prisoners  were  unfit  for  military 
service  ot  any  sort  owing  to  age  and  infirmity  ;  and  quite  a 
number  of  those  interned  had  never  been  anything  but 
politicians. 

Some  of  the  mistakes  that  had  been  made  during  the 
"  round  up  "  were  ludicrous.  Thus,  take  the  case  c£  the 
Belfast  man,  whom  I  shall  call  "  John  Graham  "  to  conceal 
his  identity.  The  military  had  been  looking  for  "  James 
Graham,"  who  was  an  active  Volunteer  ;  and  one  night  a 
lorry  stopped  at  the  house  of  the  good,  loyal  citizen,  "  John 
Graham,"  who  has  a  job  in  the  Belfast  Tramway  Service. 

"  There's  the  military  ;  "  said  his  wife,  "  and  I  had  better 
go  down  and  open  the  door.  For  they  won't  shoot  a  woman." 

"  Shoot  me  !  "  exclaimed  her  husband.  "  Shoot  me,  that 
fought  for  them  all  through  the  war  !  I'll  show  them  my 
Mons  ribbon  and  my  discharges,  and  that  will  settle  them. 
They'll  know  I'm  no  '  Sbinner.'  " 

65 


66  "on  my  keeping  " — AND  in  theirs 

Whereupon  he  attired  himself  in  his  tramway  uniform 
and  went  down  and  opened  the  door.  An  officer  and  a 
number  of  soldiers  rushed  in  and  held  him  up. 

"  You're  James  Graham,"  said  the  officer. 

"  No,  I'm  not,"  was  the  answer.    "  I'm  John  Graham." 

"  Hello,"  cried  the  officer,  turning  his  flashlight  on  the 
tramway  buttons,  "  why,  here  you  have  the  I.R.A.  uniform 
actually  on  you  !  " 

The  officer  had  evidently  dined  that  evening — not  wisely 
but  too  well — and  he  lurched  up  against  a  barometer  in  the 
hall.  He  pulled  himself  together,  and  with  the  instinct  of 
a  man  in  such  a  condition  to  try  and  appear  natural,  he 
drawled  :  "  That's  a  useful  thing." 

"  Yes,"  replied  Graham,  "  it  tells  the  truth.  It  says 
'  Change/  and  there's  a  change  here  to-night." 

"  None  of  your  dry,  Irish  wit,  Paddy,"  was  the  unsym- 
pathetic response.    "  Get  into  the  lorry  !  " 

So  the  Mons  hero  was  forthwith  lifted  into  the  waiting 
motor,  and  bundled  off  unceremoniously  to  Holywood 
Barracks. 

When,  some  weeks  later,  he  was  handed  his  Internment 
Order  in  Ballykinlar,  it  was  made  out  in  the  name  of 
"  James  Graham,"  showing  that  it  was  clearly  the  wrong 
man  they  had. 

"  That's  not  for  me  at  all,"  he  said  to  the  Iyine  Officer. 
"  My  name  is  not  James  Graham." 

"  And  what  is  your  name  ?  "  demanded  the  other. 

"  John  Graham." 

"  All  right." 

Upon  which  the  officer  took  the  Order,  scored  out 
"  James  "  and  wrote  "  John  "  above  it,  although  it  was 
supposed  to  be  a  copy  of  an  original  document  signed  by 
Ivord  French. 

Then  he  handed  it  back  to  the  prisoner. 


A  TRAINING   CAMP  67 

How  the  unfortunate  Belfast  man  used  to  con  that 
document !  He  would  put  down  his  bed  in  the  middle  of 
the  day,  and,  throwing  himself  on  it  in  tribulation  of  soul, 
he  would  read  again  and  again  the  stern  rebuke  addressed 
to  him  by  the  gallant  old  gentleman  whom  he  had  once 
followed  with  such  alacrity  on  the  memorable  retreat  from 
Mons  : — 

"  Whereas  you  are  suspected  of  acting,  having  acted, 
or  being  about  to  act  in  a  manner  prejudicial  to  the 
restoration  and  maintenance  of  order  in  Ireland  !  " 

"  Speak  not  of  grief  till  thou  hast  seen  the  tears  of  warlike 
men,"  says  the  poet  ;  and  hard,  indeed,  would  be  the  heart 
that  would  not  be  riven  with  sympathy  at  poor  Graham's 
wail  of  desolation  : — 

"  Think  of  me  lying  here,  and  the  other  b ruff  an 

drinking  pints  outside  !  " 

Afterwards  he  was  brought  out  before  the  Advisory 
Committee. 

"  We  observe,  Mr.  Graham/'  said  Judge  Ross  across  the 
table,  fumbling  amongst  a  bundle  of  police  reports  that 
evidently  related  to  the  elusive  James,  "  that  you  are  a 
member  of  the  Patrick  Pearse  Club  and  are  a  Captain." 

"  Sowl,"  was  the  rejoinder,  "  that's  quick  promotion  !  " 

In  addition  to  utterly  grotesque  cases  of  this  sort,  the 
military  sent  to  Ballykinlar  quite  a  number  of  men  who 
could  hardly  have  been  described  as  Sinn  Peine rs  at  all 
There  they  were  brought  inco  contact  with  men  of  the  most 
advanced  national  views,  subjected  to  the  influence  of  Sinn 
Fein  propaganda  in  its  most  enticing  form,  plunged  into  a 
Sinn  Fein  atmosphere,  disciplined,  educated,  drilled  by 
Irish  Republican  Army  officers,  and  generally  made  good 
Irishmen  of  by  their  internment. 

The  grand  thing  about  all  this  was  that  it  was  done  at 
the  expense  of  the  British  Treasury  ;  and  the  wasteful  way 


68  "  ON   MY  KEEPING  M — AND  IN   THEIRS 

in  which  the  Camp  was  run — though  the  wastefulness  did 
not  result  in  any  direct  benefit  to  us — was  a  great  consolation 
to  me  during  the  period  of  my  incarceration. 

In  short,  the  British  taxpayer  provided  the  I.R.A.  with 
a  training  camp  and  fed  and  clothed  our  soldiers  during 
their  stay  in  it. 

For  five  months  we  drilled  and  went  through  evolutions 
for  which  we  would  have  got  two  years'  imprisonment  out- 
side the  wires.  Then  the  military  G.H.Q.  wakened  up  and 
forbade  company  drill ;  but  they  could  not  prevent  our 
officers'  special  classes  nor  the  teaching  of  the  various 
technical  subjects  that  helped  to  make  our  men  more 
efficient  soldiers.  The  very  discipline  to  which  the  military 
themselves  subjected  us  was  a  valuable  training  in  itself  ; 
and  some  of  the  stupid  junior  "  khaki  "  officers,  who  were 
most  rigid  in  having  the  Camp  regulations  complied  with 
to  the  letter,  would  have  been  surpri,  ed,  and  probably 
disgusted,  had  they  learned  that  they  were  doing  the  very 
thing  that  the  prisoners'  leaders  were  most  anxious  should 
be  done. 

The  stories  of  high  emprise  and  daring  deeds  and  splendid 
courage  that  circulated  round  the  hut  stoves  at  night, 
between  "  I^ock-up  "  and  "  Lights-out,"  were  in  themselves 
calculated  to  make  soldiers  of  the  young  men  who  came 
from  districts  where  as  yet  there  had  been  no  active  fighting. 

We  heard  most  amazing  narratives  from  the  men  from 
Cork  and  Tipperary  and  Clare  ;  and  amid  the  seriousness 
and  grimness  of  it  all  you  always  found  the  touch  of  comedy. 
Thus  the  story  of  the  police  barracks  captured  by  the  ass  ; 
for  the  truth  of  which  Mr.  O' Grady  ot  the  Clare  County 
Council  vouched  to  me. 

It  was  a  wayside  barracks  and  the  donkey  had  been 
meandering  along  the  road  at  night.  Probably  feeling  itchy, 
as  even  donkeys  sometimes  do — although  they  are  never 


A  TRAINING   CAMP  69 

sent  to  jails  or  internment  camps — the  poor  brute  got  up 
against  the  barracks  door  and  began  to  rub  himself. 

We  all  know  the  conditions  of  nerves  in  which  the  bulk 
of  the  Irish  police  lived  after  the  attacks  on  the  country- 
barracks  began ;  and  in  this  case  the  guard,  possibly 
awakened  from  a  sleep,  assumed  that  the  noise  at  the  door 
meant  an  assault.  He,  therefore,  aroused  his  comrades,  and 
they,  seizing  their  rifles,  began  to  fire  wildly  out  of  the 
windows,  and  sent  up  signal  lights  to  summon  aid.  The 
military  rushed  out  on  a  lorry  from  the  neighbouring  town, 
and,  when  they  got  insight  of  the  barracks,  the  police  were 
still  firing  from  it.  The  relieving  party  thereupon  assumed 
that  the  barracks  had  been  captured,  and  that  it  was  the 
Volunteers  who  were  firing  from  it.  They,  therefore,  opened 
fire  on  the  building  themselves  ;  and  between  them  and  the 
police  they  demolished  it. 

Whatever  men  were,  therefore,  when  they  went  into 
Ballykinlar  Internment  Camp,  very  few  of  them,  I  think, 
but  have  been  transformed  into  Sinn  Feiners  by  their  stay 
there.  And  the  grand  thing  about  it  was,  I  have  said,  that 
the  British  Treasury  paid  for  it  all.  Those  who  control  the 
old  Empire's  policy  do  such  stupid  things  that  one  can  only 
marvel  at  how  they  muddle  through  in  spite  of  everything. 
And  yet  they  do — only  they  are  not  going  to  do  it  in  Ireland 
this  time.  They  have  never  been  up  against  a  proposition 
like  Sinn  Fein. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

EDUCATIONAL    WORK  IN    THE    CAMP. 

No  doubt  part  of  the  object  of  the  British  Government  in 
locking  us  in  a  cage  was  to  demoralise  us  ;  and  the  intern- 
ment system  is  well  designed  for  that  purpose.  It  is 
admirably  calculated  to  turn  useful,  energetic  citizens  into 
lazy,  spiritless,  good-for-nothing  creatures,  without  initiative 
or  sense  of  responsibility,  and  utterly  selfish. 

From  this  fate  our  men  were  saved,  first  through  the 
divine  influence  of  our  religion,  and  secondly  by  the  human 
agency  of  the  educational  and  other  useful  work  that  was 
carried  on  in  the  Camp. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  our  chaplain,  Father' Mclyister, 
and  how  he  worked  and  spent  himself,  day  in,  day  out,  to 
provide  us  with  facilities  for  advancing  in  the  spiritual 
life.  We  shall  not  readily  forget  his  thoughtfulness  and 
kindness  and  abiding  interest  in  us  ;  and  when  we  come  to 
the  Great  Accounting  it  may  be  well  that,  for  the  most  of 
us,  the  period  in  our  lives  for  which  we  have  most  to  show 
and  least  to  answer  will  be  the  months  we  spent  under  his 
pastorate. 

The  splendid  educational  work  that  was  carried  on  in  the 
Camp  was  due  largely  to  the  zeal  and  energy  of  Henry 
Dixon,  of  Dublin,  backed  wholeheartedly,  as  he  was  in  his 
schemes,  by  the  Commandant,  Joe  McGrath.  Mr.  Dixon 
saw  very  clearly  the  necessity  of  countering  the  enemy's 
design  in  our  regard  by  using  the  period  of  leisure,  which 
was  given  us  for  our  demoralisation,  as  an  opportunity  for 

70 


EDUCATIONAL   WORK   IN   THE  CAMP  71 

our  mental  and  physical  improvement.  These  jottings  are 
nothing  if  not  candid  ;  and  so  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying 
that,  had  it  not  been  for  Mr.  Dixon's  zeal  and  persistency 
and  vision,  the  time  of  a  lot  of  men  in  Ballykinlar  would  have 
been  for  all  practical  purposes  wasted:  For  the  Camp 
Council  showed  no  capacity  to  understand  the  value  of 
educational  work  for  the  prisoners,  and  made  no  effort 
to  provide  facilities  for  their  mental  improvement.  Thus, 
we  had  no  reading  room  ;  and  it  was  utterly  impossible  to 
work  properly  in  huts  which  were  each  used  for  all  purposes 
by  twenty-five  men.  I  am  convinced  that,  had  sufficient 
pressure  been  brought  to  bear  on  the  military,  a  room  for 
reading  and  study  would  have  been  provided.  I  understand 
that  there  was  one  in  No.  2  Camp.  But  though  some  of  us 
brought  the  matter  before  members  of  the  Council  more 
than  once  they  never  seemed  to  advert  to  the  importance 
of  it. 

Mr.  Dixon's  boundless  energy,  however,  more  than  made 
up  for  the  Council's  lethargy,  and,  as  I  have  said,  the 
Prisoners'  Commandant  gave  him  every  assistance  in  his 
power.  The  result  was  that  in  a  short  time  we  had  Irish 
Classes  for  men  of  every  province  and  every  stage  of  know- 
ledge, Shorthand  and  Book-keeping  Classes,  conducted  by 
Professor  Tracey,  of  Sligo ;  Singing,  Fiddle,  and  Piano 
Classes,  and  little  circles  for  the  study  of  French  and  Classics. 

As  regards  the  Irish  Classes,  it  must  be  confessed  that, 
though  nothing  could  surpass  the  zeal  of  that  splendid  Gael, 
Sean  O'Hea,  and  of  Messrs.  Dolan,  Bannon  and  the  other 
teachers,  the  classes  were  not  as  well  or  as  regularly  attended 
as  one  would  have  desired.  It  is  an  indisputable  fact  that 
there  are  plenty  of  good  Irish  Republicans  who  have  not  yet 
grasped  the  full  scope  and  significance  of  Irish  Nationalism. 
When  we  have  secured  our  political  freedom,  the  real  work 
of  freeing  Ireland  will  only  have  begun.    For  we  shall  then 


72  ■    ON   MY   KEEPING  " — AND   IN   THEIRS 

have  1g  set  ourselves  to  the  task  of  freeing  oui  hearts  and 
souls  and  minds  from  alien  influences.  I  met  many  young 
men  in  Ballykinlar  who,  undoubtedly,  would  have  died  foi 
Ireland  without  a  moment's  hesitation,  and  yet  who  could 
not  be  induced  to  give  a  few  hours  every  week  to  the  study 
of  their  country's  language  and  literature.  I  always  felt 
that  there  was  too  much  force  in  the 'clever  taunt  of  my 
Unionist  friend,  H.  W.  I^ech,  solicitor,  of  Coleraine,  who 
once  said  to  me  :  "I  would  soon  settle  the  Irish  Question, 
if  I  were  in  power.  I  would  give  you  your  Republic  on  condi- 
tion that  everybody  in  Ireland  would  have  to  learn  Irish 
within  two  years.  You  would  find  what  a  slump  there  would 
be  in  your  Republican  stock  then." 

I  do  not  wish  to  convey  the  impression,  of  course,  that 
this  slackness  in  regard  to  Irish  was  universal  amongst  us. 
On  the  contrary,  there  were  a  very  large  number  of  very 
earnest  and  very  self-sacrificing  students.  Nobody  could 
have  worked  harder  to  acquire  a  knowledge  of  the  national 
language  than  my  fellow-hutsmen,  Mick  Dowling  and  Tom 
Nolan  ;  and  even  men  of  more  mature  years,  like  Mr.  Brett, 
of  the  Westmeath  County  Council,  displayed  an  earnestness 
and  an  enthusiasm  in  the  matter  that  must  have  been  an 
inspiration  to  many  of  the  young.  But  when  all  was  said 
and  done,  there  might  have  been  more  of  that  sort. 

Mr.  Dixon's  zeal  did  not  stop  merely  at  providing  classes 
for  the  study  of  special  subjects.  Indeed,  his  energy  was 
rather  terrifying  to  lazy  people  like  myself,  because  you 
never  knew  into  what  fresh  ameliorative  field  of  effort  he 
was  going  to  land  you.  He  was  constantly  appearing  on 
the  horizon,  pencil  and  note-book  in  hand,  and  ready  to 
take  names  for  some  new  class.  At  one  time  so  many  fresh 
educational  schemes  were  being  launched  that  the  wicked 
brains  of  Jerry  Mulvey  and  myself  conceived  the  idea  of 
getting  a  fist  of  names  for  a  class  for  "  Pelmanism."    We 


EDUCATIONAL   WORK   IN   THE   CAMP  73 

had  a  great  little  lecture  prepared  for  the  huts,  in  the  course 
of  which  we  were  going  to  point  out  that  all  the  successful 
men  and  women  of  the  age,  from  Mary  Pickford  and  Lloyd 
George  to  our  distinguished  fellow- prisoner,  Paddy  McCrann, 
of  Lanesboro',  owed  their  success  in  life  to  their  study  of 
"  Pelmanism."  But  the  "  stunt  "  fell  through  because  we 
could  get  nobody  to  father  it.  Jerry  and  I  had  such  a  bad 
reputation  in  the  Camp  that  our  appearance  in  connection 
with  it  would  have  damned  it  right  off ;  and  though  we 
tried  to  get  Seaghan  McGrath  of  London,  when  he  arrived 
amongst  us,  to  carry  through  the  idea,  he  did  not  rise  to 
the  occasion. 

I  have  already  said  that  the  foundation  of  our  Public 
Boards'  Association  was  due  to  the  suggestion  of  Mr.  Dixon 
and  Mr.  O' Grady.  It  did  not  last  as  long  as  was  hoped  ; 
but  during  its  existence  we  had  a  fine  paper  on  the  duties 
of  a  Chairman  from  one  of  the  brainiest  men  in  the  Camp, 
my  witty  and  interesting  companion  of  many  walks  inside 
those  wires,  where  he  and  O'Dwyer  of  Omeath  and  Tipperary 
and  myself  traversed  so  many  weary  leagues  together — 
Mr.  Joe  McKinley,  of  Dundalk.  This  provoked  a  long  and 
lively  discussion  ;  and  then  we  had  another  very  useful 
and  informative  paper  on  the  Amalgamation  of  Unions  and 
the  general  reform  of  the  whole  Irish  Poor  Law  System 
from  Mr.  Bartley,  Clerk  of  the  Oldcastle  Union. 

Another  of  Mr.  Dixon's  ideas,  the  formation  of  a  Camp 
Farmers'  Union,  worked  out  better  still.  Mr.  P.  J.  Hogan, 
solicitor,  delivered  a  very  instructive  lecture  at  one  of  its 
meetings  on  the  dead  meat  trade  in  its  relations  to  Ireland. 
At  another  meeting  my  brother,  John,  read  a  paper  on 
Co-operation  in  Farming  ;  and  Mr.  Hogan,  from  Dublin, 
delivered  a  very  instructive  address  on  Horticulture. 

These  lectures  were  followed  by  interesting  and  some- 
times veiy  lively  discussions.  Eamonn  Cooney,  of  Belfast,  a 


74  ON   MY   KEEPING      — AND   IN   THEIRS 

disciple  of  Daney  McDevitt's,  sought  to  use  the  occasion 
of  these  debates  as  an  opportunity  to  preach  Socialism  ; 
and  those  ill-informed  outsiders  in  England  and  elsewhere, 
who  regard  Sinn  Fein  as  another  name  for  Bolshevism, 
would  have  their  eyes  opened  had  they  been  there  to  see 
how  unpopular  friend  Cooney's  doctrines  were  inside  that 
cage.  Of  course  there  is  no  place  in  the  world  where 
Socialism  would  be  likely  to  make  such  little  headway  as 
in  agricultural  Catholic  Ireland,  out  of  which  the  bulk  of 
our  prisoneis  came. 

In  dealing  with  Mr.  Dixon's  work  for  the  well-being  of 
the  Camp  it  should  also  be  stated  that,  beside  providing 
educational  facilities  for  the  prisoners,  he  was  very  good 
in  seeking  to  secure  for  us  means  of  amusement.  He  procured 
medals  for  football  competitions,  got  in  sets  of  chessmen, 
and  arranged  chess  and  draught  competitions  that  enabled 
us  to  pass  with  interest  what  would  otherwise  have  been 
many  a  weary  hour.  In  addition,  he  arranged  for  a  Camp 
Library,  which  he  managed  with  the  assistance  of  Mr. 
Dillon,  of  Hut  18. 

Thus  did  the  "  Murder  Gang,"  as  Sir  Hamar  Greenwood 
loved  to  call  us,  pass  their  leisure  hours  within  the  cage 
where  he  had  locked  us  for  our  country's  good. 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

THE    SHOOTINGS. 

WE  were  amongst  the  last  batch  of  prisoners  to  arrive  at 
No.  I.  Camp  ;  and  a  few  days  after  our  coming  No.  2  Camp 
was  opened  and  began  to  fill  up  rapidly.  Portion  of  this 
camp  adjoined  ours  and  was  only  separated  from  us  by 
a  barbed  wire  fence.  Along  this  fence  on  our  side  was  a 
macadamised  road,  which  we  used  as  a  promenade.  As 
was  naturally  to  be  expected,  we  were  in  the  habit  of  talking 
through  the  fence  to  our  acquaintances  on  the  other  side, 
and  at  first  no  objection  was  made  to  this  practice.  Some- 
times, however,  groups  would  gather  on  each  side,  and  in 
their  eagerness  to  get  talking  with  each  other  prisoners 
would  occasionally  get  very  close  to  the  wires.  We  were 
forbidden  to  approach  within  arm's  reach  of  the  fence  ; 
and  when  they  considered  that  we  were  too  near,  the  sentries 
would  order  us  back. 

In  the  beginning  the  thing  was  done  in  a  good-natured 
sort  of  way ;  but  then  we  noticed  that  the  sentries  were 
getting  rather  aggressive.  We  believed  that  they  were 
acting  under  the  inspiration  of  some  of  their  junior  officers^ 
as  somebody  overheard  one  of  these  say  to  a  sentry,  who 
complained  to  him  that  the  prisoners  were  coming  too 
close  :  "  You  have  your  rifle  and  you  know  what  it  is  for  !  " 

Finally,  two  or  three  shots  were  fired  by  sentries  on  differ- 
ent occasions  ;  and  one  of  these,  at  least,  was  fired  at  a  time 
when  there  was  nobody  nearer  the  wires  than  the  middle 
of  the  road.   Our  Commandant,  Patrick  Colgan,  complained 

75 


7^  "  ON   MY   KEEPING" — AND   IN   THEIRS 

to  the  British  Commandant  of  the  action  of  the  sentiies  ; 
but  the  latter  pooh-poohed  the  idea  that  the  shots  were 
fired  to  hit.  Mr.  Colgan  said  that,  if  it  was  not  permitted  to 
the  prisoners  to  speak  into  the  other  camp,  or  even  to  use 
the  road,  Colonel  Iyittle  had  only  to  say  so,  and  an  order 
would  forthwith  be  issued  by  the  prisoners'  Commandant 
to  that  effect.  But  the  Colonel  said  that  he  did  not  wish 
any  such  thing,  that  he  did  not  expect  impossibilities,  and 
that  the  prisoners  were  quite  at  liberty  to  use  the  road  for 
any  purpose  so  long  as  they  did  not  approach  any  nearer 
than  within  three  feet  of  the  wires. 

On  Sunday  evening,  the  16th  January,  we  learned  that 
a  prisoner  was  going  to  be  executed  in  Cork  Gaol  the  following 
morning.  We  had  a  special  Rosary  for  him  that  evening 
in  the  Church  and  special  prayers  for  him  at  Mass  the 
following  morning.  Amongst  those  who  offered  up  their 
prayers  for  him  on  that  morning  were  Patrick  Sloan  and 
Joseph  Tormey  ;  but,  all  unknown  to  themselves,  it  was  at 
their  own  Requiem  they  were  assisting.  For  the  prisoner 
in  Cork  was  reprieved,  and  before  the  sun  had  set  they 
themselves  bad  fallen  to  a  British  bullet. 

Just  about  mid-day  on  that  day  (Monday)  I  was  in  my 
hut  when  I  heard  a  shot  ring  out.  I  paid  no  attention  to 
it  at  first,  for  shots  from  sentries  were  beginning  to  get 
common,  as  I  have  explained.  Then,  I  saw  somebody 
running,  and  the  news  came  along  the  line  that  two  men 
were  killed.  When  I  got  up  beside  Hut  n  I  found  that 
practically  the  whole  camp  had  gathered  and  that  the  men 
were  on  their  knees  saying  the  Rosary.  It  was  a  moment 
of  terrible  excitement  and  deep  emotion  ;  and  the  sight  of 
our  two  comrades  lying  in  their  blood  was  something 
calculated  to  sweep  off  their  feet  the  calmest  of  men.  I 
never  heard  that  during  the  great  European  war  was  the 
allegation  made  in  respect  of  Germans,  Turks,   Bulgars, 


THE   SHOOTINGS  77 

Frenchmen,  Englishmen,  or  anybody  else  that  they  had  shot, 
out  of  hand,  unarmed  and  defenceless  prisoners  behind 
barbed  wire  ;  and  everybody  was  so  stirred  by  the  brutality 
of  the  affair  that  anything  might  have  happened  that  day. 

The  situation  was  saved  by  the  careful  handling  of 
Commandant  Colgan,  and  possibly  a  greater  tragedy  averted. 
With  a  fine  instinct  for  leadership  which  he  showed,  he 
brought  us  through  the  first  critical  minutes,  that  succeeded 
the  tragedy,  with  dignity  and  calmness.  Father  Mclyister, 
who  was  fortunately  at  hand  when  the  shot  was  fired  and 
who  had  rushed  immediately  to  the  assistance  of  the  dying 
men,  gave  out  the  Rosary  when  the  last  of  them  had  expired, 
and  then  the  two  corpses  were  carried  on  a  stretcher  to  the 
temporary  camp  morgue.  It  was  a  sad  sight  to  see  those  who 
a  few  minutes  before  had  been  so  full  of  life,  with  all  the 
bloom  and  glory  of  their  radiant  youth  shining  from  them, 
now  lying  stiff  and  stark  ;  and  our  hearts  were  sore  for  their 
relatives,  knowing  what  anguish  would  be  theirs  when  the 
news  would  reach  them.  Especially  did  we  feel  sorry  for 
Patrick  Sloan's  young  bride,  for  he  had  only  been  married 
a  week  before  his  arrest. 

But  tragedies  of  the  sort  were  then  the  commonplaces 
of  Irish  life.  Our  Commandant  and  Council  promptly 
took  the  steps  that  the  occasion  required.  They  demanded 
an  inquest  and  prepared  telegrams  for  despatch  to  the 
relatives  of  the  deceased,  to  one  or  two  people  in  Dublin, 
and  to  Mr.  T.  M.  Healy,  whom  it  was  intended  to  retain 
to  represent  the  next-of-kin  at  the  inquest.  Our  fellow- 
prisoner,  Mr.  P.  J.  Hogan,  was  nominated  solicitor  to  act 
for  the  next-of-kin  and  the  prisoners. 

It  was  clear,  however,  that  the  military  were  going  to 
make  a  most  determined  effort  to  hush  up  the  whole  awful 
business.  A  report,  obviously  inspired,  appeared  in  the 
Belfast  Telegraph  to  the  effect  that  the  men  had  been  shot 


yS  ,:0N   MY   KEEPING  " — AND   IN   THEIRS 

because  they  had  got  too  near  the  wires — the  inference 
being  that  they  had  been  trying  to  escape.  This  went  the 
round  of  the  other  papers  and  created  an  entirely  false 
impression  outside. 

Furthermore,  our  demand  for  an  inquest  was  refused 
although  the  district  was  not  a  "  Martial  I^aw  area  "  and 
the  holding  of  inquests  had  not  yet  so  far  as  I  was  aware 
been  prohibited  anywhere  within  the  Six  North-Eastern 
Counties.  Practically  all  the  telegrams  that  we  tried  to 
despatch  were  held  up,  although  the  British  Commandant 
had  promised  that  they  would  be  sent,  and  Mr.  Hogan  was 
refused  permission  to  communicate  with  Mr.  Tim  Healy  or 
any  other  Counsel.  There  we  were,  then,  held  in  the  grip  of 
a  rigid  censorship;  and  it  was  absolutely  impossible  for  us  to 
make  clear  to  the  public  what  had  really  happened. 

All  that  the  Camp  authorities  proposed  to  do  was  to  hold 
a  military  inquiry.  But  as  this  was  not  open  to  the  Press, 
and  as  Mr.  Hogan's  application  to  communicate  with  and 
instruct  Counsel  in  the  matter  was  not  acceded  to,  he  very 
properly  refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  such  a  farcical 
proceeding. 

Of  course  the  shooting  could  not  be  justified  in  any 
way  ;  and  the  military  knew  that.  I  did  not  see  the  men 
actually  fall ;  but  I  saw  the  pools  of  blood  where  they  had 
been  lying,  and  it  was  clear  from  the  rjosition  of  these  and 
from  the  statements  of  other  prisoners  that  they  had  not 
been  near  the  wires  when  they  were  shot.  One  of  them 
was  standing  at  the  back  of  Hut  n  well  over  on  the 
grass  on  the  camp  side  of  the  road.  The  other  was  either 
on  the  grass  or  at  the  edge  of  it ;  and  the  breadth  of  a  fairly 
wide  road  separated  him  from  the  fence.  Dr.  Higgins  told 
me  that  when  the  shot  rang  out  he  and  Major  Kyle,  of  the 
R.A.M.C,  were  in  the  Hospital.  On  hearing  the  report 
the  Major  looked  out  of  the  window  at  which  they  were 


THE   SHOOTINGS  79 

standing  and  which  commanded  a  view  of  the  road  and 
remarked  :  "  Well,  there's  nobody  on  the  road,  at  any  rate." 

Even  had  the  two  deceased  men  been  at  the  wires  there 
would  have  been  no  justification  for  shooting  them.  For 
obviously  the  only  cause  that  might  justify  the  shooting  of 
an  unarmed  prisoner  would  be  an  attempt  to  escape  ;  and 
this  element  could  in  no  circumstances  enter  into  this 
case.  For  even  by  crossing  the  wires  at  the  place  in  question 
the  prisoners  would  in  no  way  be  facilitating  their  escape, 
as  they  would  only  be  getting  into  another  "  cage  "  equally 
strongly  guarded  as  the  one  they  had  left. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  plea  of  being  too  near  the  wires 
was  abandoned  once  it  had  served  the  purpose  of  creating 
a  false  impression  in  the  beginning  ;  and  in  the  official  report 
issued  by  Dublin  Castle  and  published  in  the  Irish  daily 
papers  of  the  9th  February,  192 1,  there  is  not  a  hint  of 
it.  This  official  report  shows  so  clearly  the  unjustifiable 
nature  of  the  shooting,  and  is  so  illuminative  of  the  mentality 
of  the  British  militarists  and  of  their  methods  in  Ireland 
that  I  quote  it  in  full,  so  that  they  may  be  condemned  out 
of  their  own  mouths.    It  is  as  follows  : — 

"  A  court  of  inquiry,  in  lieu  of  an  inquest  prohibited 
by  Regulation  81,  D.O.R.R.,  assembled  at  Ballykinlar 
Camp  on  the  bodies  of  Patrick  Sloan  and  Joe  Tormey, 
who  were  killed  on  January  17th,  1921. 

"  Several  military  witnesses  deposed  to  the  fact  that 
a  number  of  men  in  two  adjoining  cages  persisted  in 
communicating  with  each  other,  despite  the  repeated 
warnings  of  a  sentry. 

"They  eventually  dispersed,  only  to  collect  after 
short  intervals  and  to  continue  to  disobey  the  orders 
given  by  the  sentry,  who  considered  himself  forced  to 


80  "ON   MY   KEEPING  ' ' — AND   IN   THEIRS 

fire  one  round  in  the  execution  of  his  duty  in  order  to 
ensure  their  dispersal. 

"  Medical  evidence  showed  that  the  bullet  hit  Tormey 
on  the  right  side  of  the  head,  and  passing  through  hit 
Sloan  in  the  neck. 

"  The  Court  found  Joe  Tormey  and  Patrick  Sloan 
died  from  shock  and  hemorrhage  caused  by  gunshot 
wounds  inflicted  by  a  sentry  in  the  execution  of  his 
duty,  and  was  a  case  of  justifiable  homicide. 

"  Every  facility  was  extended  to  any  of  the  internees 
who  desired  to  give  evidence  before  the  Court,  but  none 
availed  themselves  of  the  opportunity." 

From  this  it  appears  that  the  military  case  was  that 
the  men  were  shot — not  for  attempting  to  escape  or  for 
even  approaching  the  wires,  for  these  pleas  could  not  be 
sustained — but  for  talking  with  comrades  in  the  other  camp. 
Now,  if  there  was  a  technical  camp  rule  against  this,  it  had 
fallen  into  disuse,  and  there  was  the  express  statement  of 
the  British  Commandant  to  ours  that  he  did  not  object 
to  conversation  between  the  camps,  so  long  as  the  prisoners 
did  not  get  too  close  to  the  wires.  But  even  assuming  the 
full  force  of  the  rule,  the  violation  of  it  would  only  be  the 
breach  of  a  camp  regulation,  and  the  maximum  penalty 
for  this  according  to  these  same  regulations  was  fourteen 
days  in  the  cells.  Shooting  an  unarmed  prisoner  out  of  hand 
for  the  breach  of  a  rule  for  which  a  man  could  only  be 
awarded  fourteen  days'  imprisonment — and  this  after  a 
fair  trial — was,  therefore,  in  the  view  of  a  court  of  British 
officers  a  case  of  "  justifiable  homicide."  Nay,  this  was 
also  the  view  of  the  British  Government,  for  the  Freeman 
of  February  17th,  1921,  contained  the  following  instructive 
item  : — 


THE   SHOOTINGS  8l 

"  In  the  House  of  Commons  last  evening  Mr.  McVeagh 
asked  whether  any  action  had  been  taken  in  the  case 
of  the  soldier  who  shot  two  interned  prisoners  at  Bally- 
kinlar  Camp. 

"Sir  H.  Greenwood  :  A  Military  Court  of  Inquiry, 
held  in  lieu  of  an  inquest,  found  that  no  blame  attached  to 
the  soldier  who  fired  in  the  execution  of  his  duty.  No 
action  of  a  disciplinary  character  is,  therefore,  called  for, 
and  none  has  been  taken." 

All  of  which  lends  force  to  Tolstoy's  dictum,  that  the 
English  are  the  most  barbarous  of  all  peoples  calling  them- 
selves civilised  ! 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE    STRIKE. 

After  the  shootings  and  the  controversy  about  the  inquest, 
relations  became  very  strained  between  our  Staff  and  the 
military.  Colgan  and  Hogan  held  on  to  the  British  Com- 
mandant like  leeches  with  their  claim  for  a  full  and  public 
investigation  of  the  circumstances  under  which  our  two 
comrades  were  done  to  death  ;  and  their  demand  was  pressed 
with  such  skill  and  pertinacity  that  the  Camp  authorities 
were  obviously  becoming  worried  as  to  how  they  were 
going  to  resist  it. 

Eventually,  they  seem  to  have  decided  on  a  counter- 
attack. Hogan  was  arrested  one  day  on  the  charge  of 
having  British  currency  in  his  pocket ;  and  though  he  was 
only  detained  a  few  hours  in  the  cells,  and  his  arrest  may 
not  have  been  made  as  part  of  a  deliberate  policy,  still  it 
proved  to  be  an  indication  of  what  was  to  follow. 

Shortly  after  the  opening  of  the  Camp  Dr.  Higgins  had, 
as  the  result  of  an  arrangement  between  the  prisoners'  officers 
and  the  military,  taken  charge  of  the  Hospital  for  us.  Some 
differences  had  arisen  between  him  and  the  R.A.M.C. 
staff  ;  and  on  the  very  morning  after  the  shooting  he  was 
directed  by  the  British  Commandant  to  leave  the  Hospital. 
Apart  from  the  merits  of  the  dispute  between  Higgins  and 
the  R.A.M.C,  about  which  I  know  nothing,  it  seemed  a 
natural  thing  for  the  military  to  try  and  get  him  out  of  the 
Hospital,  if  their  policy  of  hushing  up  the  shooting  was 
going  to  be  completely  successful.    He  had  rushed  to  the 

82 


THE    STRIKE  83 

assistance  of  the  men  when  they  were  shot,  and  had  taken 
part  in  the  post-mortem  examination  of  their  remains. 
Therefore,  he  was  the  most  essential  witness  that  could 
be  called  in  regard  to  the  tragedy ;  and  if  he  remained  on 
as  the  Doctor  in  charge  of  the  Hospital  the  Camp  authorities 
could  not  very  well  get  over,  at  least,  bringing  him  before 
the  Military  Court  of  Inquiry,  if  it  was  not  going  to  be  an 
utterly  farcical  investigation.  Of  course,  I  am  not  saying 
that  Dr.  Higgins  would  have  given  evidence  before  a  court 
of  inquiry  so  constituted  and  conducted.  But  it  was  the 
duty  of  the  Camp  authorities  to  bring  him  before  it,  at 
least,  if  it  was  going  to  be  taken  seriously  by  anybody. 

About  eight  or  ten  days  after  Dr.  Higgins's  leaving  the 
Hospital,  a  prisoner  from  No.  2  Camp,  Dr.  Leonard,  was 
brought  over  and  ordered  by  Colonel  Little  to  take  charge 
cf  the  Hospital.  He  obeyed  the  order  ;  and  on  the  morning 
after  his  arrival  his  presence  in  the  Hospital  was  reported 
by  some  of  the  prisoners  to  our  Council.  This  was  an  issue 
on  which  a  fight  would  clearly  have  to  be  put  up  as,  of 
course,  the  military  had  no  more  right  to  order  an  untried 
prisoner  to  do  medical  work  than  they  would  have  had 
to  take  me  out  and  ask  me  to  prepare,  free  of  charge,  a 
conveyance  of  a  piece  of  property  they  had  bought.  Com- 
mandant Colgan,  therefore,  ordered  Dr.  Leonard  to  cease 
work,  and  he  wrote  a  letter  to  Colonel  Little  in  which  he 
said  that  as  Dr.  Leonard  had  not  been  appointed  by  the 
prisoners'  Commandant  he  could  not  be  permitted  to  remain 
in  charge  of  the  Hospital.  That  letter  went  out  on  a  Monday 
Evening.    , 

On  the  same  evening  Hut  12  had  been  ordered  to 
pack  up  and  be  ready  to  move  on  the  following  morning. 
Thereon  hangs  another  tale.  Some  weeks  before  this  the 
military  had  intended  to  take  out  of  this  hut  a  prisoner 
who  was  wanted.  I  think,  in  connection  with  a  capital 


84  "on  my  keeping  " — AND  in  theirs 

charge.  It  may  seem  incredible  to  anyone  who  has  had 
no  experience  of  army  stupidity  that  it  should  be  possible 
to  lock  inside  a  barbed  wire  cage  a  prisoner,  and  then  lose 
him  there.  But  that  is  exactly  what  happened  in  this  case. 
In  some  mysterious  way  the  "  wanted  "  man  disappeared 
inside  the  Camp,  although  the  total  number  of  prisoners 
remained  the  same  ;  and  the  military  took  out  for  trial  a 
different  man  against  whom  they  could  make  no  charge  ox 
any  kind. 

When  it  was  announced  that  Hut  12  was  under  marching 
orders,  it  was  assumed  that  all  the  men  in  it  were  going  to 
be  brought  up  to  Dublin  for  identification,  in  the  hope  of 
finding  amongst  them  the  lost  man,  although  he  was  not 
in  the  hut  at  this  time  at  all.  This  assumption  proved  to 
be  incorrect,  because  it  was  some  weeks  later  before  they 
really  discovered  in  Mount  joy  that  the  prisoner  who  had 
been  brought  up  from  Ballykinlar — an  exceedingly  plucky 
lad  named  Slowey,  who  might  easily  have  been  hanged  by 
mistake — was  not  the  man  intended  ;  and,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  as  it  afterwards  transpired,  it  was  only  proposed  to 
remove  the  occupants  of  Hut  12  down  to  No.  2  Camp,  as 
the  hut  was  going  to  be  used  as  a  dispensary. 

However,  we  all  thought  that  Hut  12  was  in  for  a  bad 
time,  and  at  Mass  that  morning  we  offered  up  a  special 
joint  prayer  for  a  u  safe  journey  for  Hut  12." 

When  we  came  out  of  the  church  the  sensational  news 
passed  round  amongst  us  that  our  Commandant  had  been 
arrested  during  the  night.    The  counter-attack  had  opened. 

The  Council  met  hurriedly  after  breakfast.  It  was  learned 
that  Colgan  had  been  arrested  on  account  of  his  action 
in  ordering  Dr.  Leouard  to  cease  work  and  by  reason  of 
what  the  enemy  regarded  as  his  "  impertinent  "  letter  to 
the  British  O.C.  The  Council  very  properly  decided  that 
the  occasion  was  one  for  an  effective  protest,  and  it  agreed 
that  a  fi>ht  should  be  pftit  ttr>. 


THE   STRIKE  85 

The  intention  of  the  military  to  remove  Hut  12  seemed 
to  offer  a  favourable  point  on  which  to  open  the  struggle. 

"  They  have  arrested  our  Commandant,"  said  the  leader 
of  the  War  Party  on  the  Council,  "  and  we  are  all  agreed 
that  a  protest  should  be  made.  Here's  an  opportunity  to 
hand.    Let  us  prevent  them  removing  Hut  12." 

His  idea  was  adopted,  and  an  order  was  issued  that  Hut 
12  should  go  "  on  the  run." 

Then  we  witnessed  an  amusing  sight.  You  would  see  a 
fellow  peeping  out  of  the  door  of  Hut  12  to  see  if  any 
sentries  were  watching ;  and  if  there  were  none  he  would 
dash  out  of  the  hut  with  his  bag  in  his  hand  and  race  across 
the  "  compound  "  to  another  hut.  A  few  minutes  later 
you  would  see  his  bed-boards  and  blankets  being  taken  out 
of  one  of  the  windows  at  the  side  of  the  hut  and  hurriedly 
removed  out  of  sight.  It  seemed  the  very  acme  of  comedy 
to  see  twenty-five  men  go  "on  the  run  "  inside  about  ten 
acres  of  a  "  cage."  But  before  the  week  had  closed  there 
was  even  more  ridiculous  developments. 

At  11  o'clock  each  day  we  had  "  Inspection."  On  these 
occasions  the  British  Line  Officer  used  to  be  accompanied 
by  a  sergeant  and  escort  of  two  men.  As  they  came  to  the 
door  of  each  hut  the  sergeant  would  shout  in  strident 
tones,  "  Stand  to  your  cots."  And  we  stood  beside  our 
beds  whilst  we  were  being  inspected. 

On  this  memorable  morning  the  Line  Officer  and  his 
escort  of  bayonets  came  to  the  door  of  Hut  12. 

"  Stand  to  your  cots  !  "  shouted  the  sergeant. 

"  But,"  as  he  told  the  tale  afterwards  in  a  Cockney 
accent,  adorned  with  soldier  expletives  and  adjectives  that 
my  chaste  page  will  not  receive,  "  when  I  looked  round  the 
blooming  show,  there  was  neither  cots  nor  men.  The 
blighters  had  disappeared." 

It  was  great  fun  to  watch  the  amazed  crestfallen  face  of 


86  "on  my  keeping  " — AND  in  theirs 

the  Officer  as  he  came  out  of  the  hut.  Where,  oh  where, 
had  Hut  12  gone  ? 

In  order  to  cover  the  tracks  of  the  twenty- five  men  "  on 
the  run  "  our  Council  had  to  take  another  step  that  was 
a  corollary  to  the  first  one. 

They  issued  an  order  that  all  prisoners  were  to  refuse 
to  answer  their  names  either  at  roll  call  or  otherwise.  The 
military  had  only  got  to  know  a  few  of  the  more  prominent 
figures  in  the  Camp  by  sight,  and  if  there  was  a  general 
refusal  to  answer  names  it  would  be  impossible  for  them  to 
discover  the  whereabouts  of  the  missing  men.  They  might 
find  twenty-six  men  in  a  particular  hut,  but  if  everybody 
refused  to  give  his  own  name  or  that  of  anyone  else  it  would 
be  impossible  for  the  British  Officer  to  say  which  man  did 
not  really  belong  to  the  hut. 

At  the  same  time  all  our  Executive  Officers — Line 
Captains  and  the  rest — resigned  their  positions  so  far  as 
their  relations  with  the  military  and  their  co-operation 
with  them  in  the  running  of  the- Camp  was  concerned. 

So  the  issue  was  fairly  knit.  We  said  :  "  Until  our  Com- 
mandant is  restored  to  us,  we  refuse  to  allow  you  to  remove 
Hut  12,  and  our  officers  will  not  co-operate  with  you  in 
running  the  Camp.  Furthermore,  no  prisoner  will  answer 
his  name  for  any  purpose." 

It  was  a  daring  attitude  to  take  up,  considering  that  there 
we  were,  unarmed  and  utterly  defenceless,  inside  a  cage 
surrounded  with  bayonets  and  machine  guns,  and  at  a  time, 
too,  when  it  had  been  clearly  demonstrated  by  the  burning 
of  Cork  and  the  numerous  murders  by  the  armed  forces  of 
the  King  of  England  all  over  Ireland  that  the  British  Govern- 
ment might  commit  in  Ireland  any  villainy  it  pleased 
without  being  hampered  by  any  really  effective  protest  from 
world  opinion.  But  our  leaders  had  led  us  into  a  fight,  and 
we  made  up  our  minds  to  stand  by  them,  come  what  may. 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

THE  FIGHT  AND  THE  PEACE. 

It  was  clear  from  the  start  of  our  struggle  that  the  military 
were  not  very  keen  on  a  fight.  They  must  have  known 
that  they  were  fighting  on  an  issue  that  put  them  in  the 
wrong,  as  they  could  not  claim  to  conscript  the  services 
of  a  professional  man.  Furthermore,  they  were  in  this 
difficulty.  Any  sort  of  trouble  in  the  Camp  would  inevitably 
attract  outside  attention  to  it  and  be  connected  in  the  public 
mind  with  the  recent  shootings,  the  memory  of  which  the 
Camp  authorities  were  so  anxious  to  efface.  All  day  on 
Tuesday,  therefore,  all  sorts  of  unofficial  feelers  and 
negotiations  went  on ;  and  Captain  Newton,  the  Chief 
Censor,  who  was  an  exceedingly  able  man  and  a  very 
skilful  diplomatist,  was  active  in  trying  to  effect  a  settle- 
ment. But  our  officials  stood  firm.  We  must  get  back  our 
Commandant,  or  the  fight  would  go  on. 

Evening  came,  and  found  us  still  at  war.  The  militajy 
did  not  know  how  far  we  were  going  to  go,  and  when  the 
time  for  "  I^ock-up  "  arrived  they  made  the  most  elaborate 
preparations  to  deal  with  what  they  termed  "  the  Mutiny." 
Of  course,  our  officers  were  too  good  soldiers  to  allow  us, 
unarmed  and  defenceless  men,  to  do  anything  that  would 
give  the  enemy  an  excuse  for  shooting  us.  We  were  to  go 
to  our  huts  at  the  proper  time,  and  to  obey  every  order 
except  the  one  to  answer  our  names.  But  the  British 
Commandant  and  his  Staff  did  not  know  to  what  length 
our  resistance  was  likely  to  proceed  ;  and  we  were  greatly 

87 


88  "on  my  keeping  '* — AND  in  theirs 

amused  to  see  tbe  careful  military  arrangements  that 
were  made  to  round  us  up  and  get  us  into  our  huts  when 
the  time  for  retirement  came.  It  was  a  fine  piece  of  comedy 
to  see  the  soldiers  in  "extended  order"  coming  down  along  our 
line  of  huts  and  watching  to  see  where  our  attack  would  come 
from.  All  the  weapons  that  we  had  were  our  knives  and 
forks  ;  and  we  were  not  such  simpletons  as  to  try  their 
effectiveness  against  rifles  and  bayonets  and  machine  guns. 

When  the  task  of  locking  us  up  securely  had  been 
completed,  the  Line  Officers,  heavily  escorted,  made  their 
rounds  of  the  huts.  They  were  evidently  instructed  not 
to  force  the  fight.  For  in  most  of  the  huts  they  did  not 
call  the  roll  at  all.  They  simply  counted  the  men  to  see 
that  they  had  the  full  number  ;  and  then  they  read  us  a 
proclamation  addressed  to  us  by  the  Military  O.C. 

It  was  a  weak  document,  couched  in  the  style  of  the  famous 
"  Oh,  People  of  Bagdad  "  proclamation  of  the  Great  War. 
The  writer  wished  us  to  understand  that  he  had  only  been 
thinking  and  planning  for  our  comfort.  Finding  that  the 
mass  of  us  were  disposed  to  be  well  conducted  he  had  secured 
for  us  many  privileges — the  right  to  receive  unlimited  letters 
and  parcels,  extension  of  the  "  Lock-up  "  time,  a  canteen, 
etc.  In  pursuance  of  his  desire  for  our  welfare  he  had  brought 
over  a  doctor  of  our  own  from  the  other  camp  to  look  after 
our  health.  But  this  doctor,  though  quite  willing  to  work 
for  us,  had  been  prevented  from  doing  so  by  one  Patrick 
Colgan.  "  The  said  Patrick  Colgan"  had  "on  different  other 
occasions  "  obstructed  the  military  in  their  management 
of  the  Camp,  and  the  O.C.  had  been  reluctantly  compelled 
to  place  him  under  arrest.  Some  evil  disposed  persons 
had  taken  advantage  of  the  occasion  to  foment  a  mutiny 
and  in  consequence,  though  he  regretted  having  to  punish 
the  innocent  with  the  guilty,  the  O.C.  had  to  withdraw  all 
the  prisoners'  privileges.    The  Canteen  had,  therefore,  been 


THE  FIGHT  AND  THE   PEACE  89 

closed,  and  letters  and  parcels  would  be  cut  off.  Further- 
more, the  offices  of  Commandant  and  Vice- Commandant 
were  abolished  for  all  time.  But,  of  course,  once  we  returned 
to  a  better  frame  of  mind  and  threw  over  "  the  said  Patrick 
Colgan "  and  the  other  evil  disposed  persons,  who  had 
constituted  themselves  our  leaders,  all  our  other  privileges 
would  be  restored  to  us. 

The  only  effect  the  proclamation  had  on  us  was  to  give 
us  a  good  laugh  when  the  officer  had  retired  and  locked  us 
in.  It  was  about  as  silly  an  attempt  to  influence  public 
opinion  as  the  messages  they  used  to  drop  from  aeroplanes, 
with  a  view  to  inducing  the  rank  and  file  of  the  I.R.A.  to 
turn  on  their  leaders.  When  will  English  statesmen  and 
publicists  learn  that  the  yearning  for  nationhood  is  an 
instinct  in  the  Irish  heart  that  neither  argument  nor 
propaganda  can  eradicate  ? 

If  we  had  men  "  on  the  run  "  in  the  Camp  during  the 
day,  we  had  further  replica  of  outside  conditions  during 
the  night.  For  there  were  a  whole  series  of  "  raids."  Several 
huts  were  entered  during  the  night  by  armed  soldfers,  and 
men  who  were  supposed  to  be  leaders  of  the  "  mutiny  " 
were  arrested  and  taken  out  to  the  cells.  Some  of  the  officers 
conducted  themselves  very  badly  during  these  raids.  They 
were  not  sure  of  the  men  whom  they  were  arresting,  and  the 
refusal  of  everybody  to  answer  questions  exasperated  them 
very  much.  In  some  cases  they  arrested  the  wrong  men, 
and  generally  made  a  mess  of  things. 

The  following  morning  very  elaborate  searches  were 
made  in  a  number  of  the  huts,  and  we  were  kept  in  till  long 
after  the  usual  time. 

When  our  Line  Officer  got  our  length  he  was  accompanied 
by  the  lieutenant  whom  I  have  already  referred  to  by  his 
camp  name  of  "  Judas."  The  latter  had  evidently  been 
raiding  during  the  night,   and  from  want  of  sleep  and 


90  "ON   MY   KEEPING      — AND   IN   THEIKS 

indignation  at  the  calm  way  in  which  the  prisoners  were 
refusing  to  answer  names  in  spite  of  threats  and  assaults, 
he  was  in  a  vile  temper.  He  pulled  down  a  few  books  from 
our  shelves  and  threw  them  on  the  floor.  Then  he  made 
a  drive  for  John  Creed's  bag,  opened  it  and  scattered  its 
contents  on  the  floor,  for  all  the  world  like  the  way  my 
eighteen  months'  old  baby  was  wont  to  throw  her  doll 
from  her  if  you  sought  to  divert  her  attention  by  it  when 
she  was  crying  for  something  she  could  not  get.  Later  on 
in  the  morning  I  saw  the  shocking  condition  in  which 
Hut  2  had  been  left  by  "  Judas  "  and  his  friends.  It  was 
a  great  object-lesson  to  me  of  the  present  condition  of  the 
British  Army  when  it  has  to  depend  on  officers  of  that  type. 

Through  Wednesday  and  Thursday  the  struggle  went  on. 
Each  night  there  would  be  some  further  arrests  designed, 
no  doubt,  with  a  view  to  getting  the  leaders  and  breaking 
the  morale  of  the  men.  On  the  whole,  however,  the  military 
were  not  forcing  the  fight  very  much,  and  instead  of  calling 
the  roll,  they  contented  themselves  with  counting  us  at 
night  and  in  the  morning. 

All  the  time  peace  feelers  were  being  tried.  The  Line 
Captains  were  brought  out  on  several  occasions  for 
consultation,  and  terms  of  settlement  were  offered  and 
discussed.  Inside  the  wires  opinion  was  divided  on  the 
question  of  an  arrangement.  Soon  the  whole  Camp  had 
divided  itself  into  two  parties  ;  and  we  abused  each  other 
with  all  that  easy  facility  that  comes  so  naturally  to  Irish 
parties  always.  One  body  dubbed  its  opponents  the 
"  Suicide  Party,"  whilst  the  latter  retorted  by  calling  the 
others,  "  The  Peace-at-any-Price  Men."  In  spite  of  differ- 
ences of  opinion,  however,  we  were  all  determined  to  carry 
out  the  orders  of  our  Council,  no  matter  how  we  regarded 
them.  But,  of  course,  each  party  tried  to  influence  the 
Council  as  much  as  possible,  and  "  lobbying  "  went  on  as 


THE  FIGHT  AND  THE  PEACE  91 

vigorously  as  at  Westminster  or  Washington  or  at  the 
Clogheen  Board  of  Guardians  where  my  good  friend,  Tom 
Gorman,  sits. 

On  Friday  the  Council  determined  to  force  the  fight. 
So  an  order  was  issued  that  the  locks  were  to  be  taken  ofi 
the  doors  quietly  that  day. 

When  the  officers  came  to  lock  us  up  in  the  evening 
they  found  they  could  not  do  so  ;  and  they  were  obviously 
astounded  at  this  development.  Hastily  they  consulted 
together,  and  then  they  retired  outside  the  wires  to  report. 

For  an  hour  or  so  we  waited  in  our  huts  for  developments. 
Then  we  saw  a  large  force  of  soldiers,  fully  armed  and 
accoutred,  marching  towards  the  entrance  to  the  cage. 
It  was  pay  night  with  them  and  many  of  them  were  under 
the  influence  of  drink.  They  sang  and  shouted  in  a  threaten- 
ing manner  as  they  came  along,  and  it  looked  as  if  we 
were  in  for  trouble. 

We  heard  afterwards  that  the  plan  was  to  drive  us  at 
the  point  of  the  bayonet  into  the  dining  halls  and  to  keep 
us  there  for  the  night.  But,  of  course,  we  did  not  know 
what  they  were  up  to,  and  I  confess  that  I  felt  far  from 
comfortable  at  the  thought  of  having  these  armed  men, 
under  the  influence  of  drink,  turned  loose  amongst  a  camp 
full  of  defenceless  prisoners  towards  whom  they  had  been 
taught  to  cherish  the  most  bitter  feelings  of  animosity  and 
ill-will. 

I  am  still  convinced  that  we  were  in  grave  peril  and  that 
anything  might  have  happened  had  either  the  soldiers  or 
even  some  of  the  prisoners  got  out  of  hand.  But  the  Sacred 
Heart  and  the  Mother  of  God  and,  on  the  human  side,  the 
good  sense  of  Joe  McGrath,  saved  us  that  night.* 

Joe  was  a  prisoner  in  the  cells  and  saw  the  preparations 
of  the  soldiers,  and  realised  how  easily  a  tragedy  might 
result.     Accordingly  he  got  in  touch  with  Colonel  Little 


92  ON   MY   KEEPING      — AND   IN   THEIRS 

or  Captain  Newton  and  fixed  up  the  basis  for  a  Conference 
on  the  following  day.  The  soldiers  weie,  therefore,  turned 
back  at  the  gate  of  the  "  cage  "  ;  and  Colonel  Little  himself 
went  round  every  hut  in  the  compound  to  warn  us  that 
we  were  in  danger  of  being  shot  if  any  of  us  took  advantage 
of  the  unlocked  doors  to  come  out  during  the  night.  He 
made  a  very  good  impression  by  the  way  he  did  this,  and 
helped  the  creation  of  a  "  peace  atmosphere."  On  the 
following  day  we  had  a  further  instalment  of  comedy. 
For  Joe  McGrath  and  the  other  prisoners  were  "  released  " 
out  of  the  cells  and  sent  in  to  the  "  cage  "  "on  parole  "  to 
return  to  the  gate  at  five  in  the  evening. 

We  had  thus  during  the  week  men  "  on  the  run,"  "  raids," 
and  releases  "  on  parole  " — all  inside  an  enclosure  of  about 
ten  acres  ! 

Before  the  "  parole  "  had  expired  peace  terms  had  been 
definitely  arranged.  Colgan  was  to  go  to  the  other  camp 
on  the  expiration  of  his  sentence ;  but  the  offices  of 
Commandant  and  Vice- Commandant,  which  had  been 
abolished  with  such  a  flourish,  were  restored,  and  we  got  back 
our  privileges  with  a  promise  that  some  of  them  would  be 
extended.  We  also  secured  other  concessions  and  generally 
strengthened  our  position.  Joe  McGrath  was  elected  our 
new  Commandant  and  T.  F.  Fitzpatrick  the  Vice. 

One  joke  of  the  strike  deserves  commemoration.  A 
prisoner  got  ill  on  one  of  those  days,  and  presented  himself 
at  hospital.  According  to  the  usual  routine  the  R.A.M.C. 
Captain  asked  him  his  name,  his  number,  his  hut,  and  com- 
pany, but  faithful  to  the  Council's  orders  he  refused  to 
answer  any  of  these  questions.  The  Captain,  however, 
saw  that  the  man  was  very  ill,  so  he  said  to  the  orderly  : 
"  Take  this  man  into  the  ward  and  enter  him  up  in  the 
book  as  an  Unknown  Warrior  !  " 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

GETTING     IN     OUR     TIME. 

After  the  Strike  there  were  no  great  causes  for  excitement 
in  the  Camp,  and  day  followed  day  and  week  followed 
week  with  painful  monotony.  I  played  chess,  and  tramped 
my  weary  rounds  of  the  "compound,"  and  tried  to  see  all 
the  fun  that  was  going,  and  circulated  all  the  sensational 
stories  I  could  pick  up,  including  all  the  "wonderful"  wireless 
messages  my  imaginative  friend  Pat  Dempsey  use  to  receive, 
and  scrubbed  my  clothes  when  washing  day,  with  all  its 
horrors,  arrived,  and  read,  and  talked,  and  idled.  But  it 
was  all  a  dreary  business,  and  it  was  hard  to  keep  oneself 
from  depression  at  times. 

For  the  mere  physical  discomforts  of  camp  life  I  cared 
nothing,  and  I  had  no  sympathy  with  those  who  were 
constantly  complaining  about  the  food  and  the  bed-boards 
and  such  things.  Personally  I  left  the  place  greatly  improved 
in  health.  The  official  ration  was  not,  in  my  opinion,  sufficient 
in  itself  to  keep  a  man  quite  fit ;  but  the  general  conditions 
in  our  camp  were  such  that  soldiers,  at  least,  could  not 
complain  of  them  very  much,  though  they  were  unduly 
hard  for  the  elderly  men  and  for  some  of  the  civilian 
internees,  many  of  whom  were  in  delicate  health. 

But  apart  from  physical  discomfort  internment  involved 
terrible  mental  suffering  for  a  lot  of  the  prisoners.  Most 
of  us  had  dependants,  and  the  uncertainty  as  to  the  duration 
of  our  detention  and  anxiety  about  the  fate  of  our  families, 
if  our  resources  should  become  exhausted,  must  have  kept 

93 


94  "on  my  keeping  " — AND  in  theirs 

many  a  man  awake  at  night  as  he  lay  on  his  hard  bed 
and  listened  to  the  sentries  outside  the  wires  shouting  from  one 
to  another  in  wearisome  monotone  their  cry  of  "All's  well." 

Then  there  were  the  loneliness  and  the  heart-hunger  and 
the  yearning  for  one's  home  and  for  the  grasp  of  friendly 
hand  and  the  sound  of  a  loved  one's  voice.  I  recall  how 
easily  one  was  affected  by  some  simple  reference  ro  home 
and  dear  ones.  One  of  my  sisters  wrote  me  once  and  told 
me  how  my  little  boy  had  awakened  from  his  sleep  wildly 
excited  one  morning  with  the  cry  :  "  Oh,  auntie,  I  dreamt 
my  father  was  home  !  "  And  I  shed  tears  over  that  letter, 
because  it  revealed  to  me  so  vividly  the  aching  loneliness 
of  those  to  whom  my  presence  was  necessary  to  make  that 
sacred  thing  called  "  Home."  I  was  suffering  very  little 
compared  with  some  men  in  the  Camp  ;  and  our  sufferings, 
on  the  whole,  were  nothing  compared  with  those  of  the 
men  and  women  who  were  enduring  the  horrors  of  penal 
servitude  and  long  terms  of  imprisonment ;  whilst  even 
they  were  getting  off  more  easily  than  many  who  were  being 
tortured  outside,  and  who  saw  their  houses  burned  to  the 
ground  and  their  sons  shot  like  dogs  almost  before  their 
eyes.  What  an  arithmetician  he  would  be  who  could  tot 
up  the  sum  of  all  the  sufferings  that  the  people  of  Ireland 
have  had  to  endure  at  the  hands  of  the  British  Government 
even  in  the  short  term  since  Sir  Hamar  Greenwood  assumed 
office.  But  it  is  recorded  somewhere,  and  atonement  must 
always  be  made  for  sin  ! 

We  did  our  best  to  vary  the  monotony  of  Camp  life  with 
games  and  concerts  and  every  other  form  of  recreation 
that  was  open  to  us.  We  had  a  very  fine  concert  for  the 
Emmet  Anniversary.  There  were  one  or  two  very  good 
musicians  amongst  the  prisoners  and  some  fine  voices  ; 
and  these  raised  both  this  concert  and  the  one  we  had  on 
St.  Patrick's  Night  to  a  very  high  rank,  indeed. 


GETTING   IN   OUR  TIME  95 

St.  Patrick's  Day  was  celebrated  with  all  proper  solemnity. 
In  the  morning  we  had  a  great  parade.  We  were  formed 
up  in  companies  and  reviewed  by  our  Commandant.  Then 
we  marched  round  the  Camp  in  columns  of  four.  It  was 
fine  to  hear  the  tramp  of  our  eight  hundred  men  as  we 
swept  along.  For  me  it  was  at  once  exhilarant  and  sad. 
Exhilarant,  because  it  was  good  to  feel  myself  still  young 
enough  to  march  with  firm  step  and  head  erect ;  sad  because 
I  felt,  with  strange  poignancy,  that  my  youth  would  be 
"  dismissed  "  with  myself  when  we  had  got  back  to  the 
parade  ground  and  saluted  the  flag.  For  I  believed  that  I 
would  soon  be  returning  to  a  peaceful  Ireland  in  which, 
as  a  hum-drum  country  attorney,  I  would  draft  my  convey- 
ances and  draw  my  bills  of  costs  and  slip  quietly  down  the 
years  into  the  shadows. 

That  would  be  the  last  time  I  would  step  to  time  as, 
with  soldier  mien  and  proud  bearing,  we  "  moved  to  the 
right  in  columns  of  four." 

One  has  to  have  reached  forty,  as  I  have  now  done,  to 
appreciate  what  a  glorious  privilege  is  Youth. 

I  may  remark  that  one  of  the  minor  joys  of  our  St. 
Patrick's  Day  Parade  was  the  reflection  that  Ballykinlar 
was  about  the  only  place  in  Ireland,  at  that  time  of  intensive 
coercion,  where  such  a  display  could  have  taken  place  in 
peace.  We  might  each  have  got  two  years'  imprisonment 
outside  the  wires  for  what  we  did  that  day  with  impunity 
inside  them. 

On  Easter  Sunday  we  produced  two  plays — a  touching 
little  curtain-raiser  entitled  "  The  Four  Provinces,"  which 
was  played  with  superb  skill  by  George  Nesbitt  and  Tom 
Meldon  and  the  rest  of  their  little  company,  and  my  own 
comedy,  "  The  Pope  in  Killybuck."  It  is  an  interesting 
illustration  of  the  amount  of  humour  and  humanity  that 
lurks  beneath  even  the  bitterest  of  our  controversies  in  the 


0,6  "()N     MY     KIWI'INd   "       AND    IN    THEIBfl 

North  Kasi   Corner,  that  "  Killybuck  "  hai  been  played 
iwi«  e  in  BeJlykiiilni  Camp    once  «lnrinj»  the  war  lm  Canon'l 
Ulstei   Division,  and  then  lm  the  Irish  Republican  Prisoners 
<mi  lli.it  Kastci  night  ;  and  oneach  nceasioii  il.  wascnthusiasti 
cally  received.    The  insight  into  ill ■  i.  i  life  that  it   reveals 
Keemed   ol   ;',ie;il    interesl    to  oil i    lellow  prisoners  from   the 
South,  ;iiid  some  <>l   the  comments  wen-  amusing  to  m< 
ihOWing   how   little   llie   real    Ulstei    is   known   on   the  othet 
Hide  ol   the    Boyne.     Thus,  one   IVIunstei    111:111,  in  discussing 
the    final    hai    parlour  scene,   could    not   believe   that    in    real 
life    Orangemen    ,iikI    Nationalists    would    drink    and    make 
merry  togethci  undei  any  circumstances.   Whereas,  ol  com 
in   null   Ulstei   the  best   and   kindliest   neighbours  oik-  often 
has  att  the  people  ol  the  opposing  party.     When   I  was  In 
Ballyldnlai    none  ol  my  clients  showed  nunc  consideration 
loi   me  01  exhibited  more  patience  nboul   their  bu&lnesi 

:  1 1 1 . 1 1 1 : .  in  iiiv  oiliee  Hi. in  111  v  Protestant  Unionist  ones,  and 
some  <»l  the  most  touching  evidences  ol  good  will  I  received 
were  from  Orangemen.  During  my  intcrnmenl  I  think 
only  one  Important  client  took  his  papers  otit  oi  my  office, 
and  he  was  ;»  man  who  in  0111  student  days  togethci  was 
quitf  .1  "  hre-eatei  "  and,  in  fact,  was,  I  believe,  the  man 
who  made  me  a  regular  render  of  Arthur  Ciillith's  paper  ' 
II  Belfast,  wilh  its  wicked  Press  and  its  hate -breathing 
pulpits   and    its    pagan    philosophy,    could    be   lifted    some 

nij'ht  i>v  the  iaxae  witch,  thai  took  iii<-  tele  oi  Man  out  oi 

I./Oiigh  Ncagh,  and  dropped  by  her  al  the  mouth  ol  the  Clyde, 
there  would  he  soon  nothing  but  peace  and  good-will  and 
hue  fellowship  all  over  rural  I  lister. 

The  caste  for  "  Killybuck  "  was  Idled  from  my  Ulstei 
friends,  Prank  Don:;,  P.  MaeC.artnn,  Tom  l,aikiu,  John 
Bonner,  lv.  Cooney,  I  Iiij-li  Bradley,  (icorgic  Goodman  and 
P.  Kearney,  with  Jim  l,alor,  from  Kdlaiin,,  .r.  I  he 
auctioneer.      They    all    played    fheii    parts    very   skillully. 


QBTTINa    in   OUB  TIME  9J 

Henry  Dixon  acted  aa  itage  manage]  and  threw  himieU 

LntO  1li<'   work   with   In.   ir.n.il   /.<;il   mid    1 1n  >i<  hij'Iiik  :,-. 

Thus  we  tried  to  yv\   iii  our  time  .1,  best    we  could  ;  but. 
thotigh    there    were    very    lew    complaints,    everybody    I'll 

the  Irlaomeness  and  monotony  <>i  it  all  very  much,  and 
every  whispei  Lha1  mighl  BUggen  an  early  releaN  wu 
repeat  d  and  exaggerate  d  till  it  lost  .ill  i<- ■..  mblam .  i<>  its 
original  self.  But  there  was  ao  thought  of  aurrendei  amongst 
the  prisoners.  The  mass  of  them  refused  lo  pun  base  then 
freedom  by  th<-  smallesl  act  thai  tuighi  b<-  interpreted  by 

anybody  as  a  giving  :iway  ol  :i  pi  m<  'iple.  They  knew  thai 
the  lioiioni  oi  the  nation  was  in  the  keeping  ol  even  the 
humble -.i  prisonei  in  the  camp;  and  they  alio  fell  [njtint 

lively  that  victory  was  at  hand. 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 

STRATEGY. 

Sometimes  the  monotony  of  Camp  life  was  broken  by  some 
— usually  stupid — performance  on  the  part  of  the  military. 

Thus,  one  night  we  had  read  for  us  a  special  routine 
order  directing  us  to  betake  ourselves  to  our  huts  when  we 
heard  the  big  horn  in  one  of  the  sentry  boxes  blown.  This 
happened  the  following  day ;  and  we  all  made  for  our 
respective  huts,  wondering  what  was  afoot. 

We  assumed  that  there  was  going  to  be  an  elaborate 
search  for  documents  or  such  contraband  as  money,  pen- 
knives or  scissors,  and  we  made  our  preparations  accordingly. 
I  took  the  trouble  of  wrapping  in  brown  paper  a  pound  note, 
which  I  had,  in  order  that  I  might  bury  it  in  a  heap  of  sand. 

But  I  might  not  have  bothered  myself,  for  no  search 
was  intended.  Instead  of  that  we  were  taken  out,  hut  after 
hut,  and  escorted  by  strange  paths  to  the  football  field. 
When  it  oame  to  the  turn  of  our  hut,  we  were  marched  in 
single  file  through  a  long  line  of  soldiers  to  the  Quarter- 
master's stores.  Here  we  were  halted,  in  succession  in  batches 
of  eight,  opposite  one  of  the  windows  of  the  stores.  All 
sorts  of  officers,  some  of  them  with  red  tabs  on  their  head 
gear  or  uniform,  were  buzzing  about,  and  Cclonel  Hely- 
Hutchinson  himself  was  standing  facing  us  where  we  had 
been  halted.  There,  too,  I  think,  was  an  old  friend,  the 
Adjutant,  whom  we  used  to  nickname  "  Got  me  ?  "  as  that 
was  a  favourite  phrase  of  his  to  make  an  impressive  ending 
to  any  admonition  that  he  found  necessary  to  address  to  us. 

I  was  the  first  man  of  our  batch  of  eight,  and  as  we  faced 

98 


STRATEGY  99 

him,  the  Colonel  asked  me:  "  Have  you  got  your  Intern- 
ment Order  ?  "   I  said  I  had. 

A  similar  question  was  put  to  each  of  the  others,  and  in 
the  case  of  those  who  replied  in  the  negative,  their  names 
were  taken  down  in  a  note-book.  Then  we  were  told  to  move 
on  "  at  the  double  "  ;  and  we  trotted  in  single  file  through 
lines  of  soldiers  that  stretched  into  the  football  field.  Here 
we  were  all  herded  together  in  a  corner  of  the  field  for  about 
two  hours  until  the  whole  Camp  had  been  subjected  to  the 
same  process  which  we  had  gone  through. 

Whilst  we  waited  in  the  field  we  made  all  sorts  of  conjec- 
tures as  to  what  could  be  the  meaning  of  the  manoeuvre. 
It  seemed  absurd  that  they  should  adopt  this  elaborate 
procedure  in  order  to  find  out  the  number  of  men  who  had 
been  served  with  Internment  Ordeis.  Surely,  they  must 
have  some  records  in  their  books  to  show  who  had  been 
interned  and  who  not,  we  said  ;  and  at  any  rate  would  it 
not  be  much  simpler  to  instruct  the  Iyine  Officers  to  find 
out  the  required  information  by  inquiry  in  the  huts  at  Roll 
Call  or  Inspection.  Clearly,  there  was  something  else  behind 
the  business  ;  although  Henry  Dixon  argued  that  the  military 
did  such  queerly  stupid  things  that  it  was  quite  possible 
that  the  performance  had  really  for  its  object  what  purported 
to  be  it. 

When  we  were  released  out  of  the  field,  however,  we  saw 
at  once  what  they  had  been  doing,  for  two  spy  holes  had 
been  bored  in  the  whitened  window,  opposite  which  we 
had  been  halted  in  small  parties  ;  and  clearly  the  reason  for 
our  being  kept  standing  facing  it  for  a  few  minutes  was 
to  enable  some  person  or  persons  inside  to  inspect  each 
prisoner  carefully  without  the  danger  of  themselves  being 
seen. 

Then  we  knew  that  they  were  after  the  lost  man  of  whom 
I  have  spoken  in  the  chapter  dealing  with  the  origin  of  the 


100  "  ON    MY   KEEPING  " — AND   IN   THEIRS 

strike  ;  and  we  discovered  before  the  evening  was  over 
that  the  "  spotters  "  had  been  two  women  who  had  been 
brought  into  and  out  of  the  Camp  in  a  covered  Red  Cross 
lorry.  Evidently  the  whole  military  staff  had  cogitated 
long  and  deeply  as  to  how  they  were  going  to  have  us 
inspected  for  identification  purposes  without  our  suspecting 
what  was  being  done ;  and  the  elaborate  performance 
through  which  we  had  been  put  was  intended  to  put  us 
off  the  scent.  Poor  innocent  creatures  that  we  were,  we  would 
think  that  we  had  onfy  been  brought  out  in  this  way  in  order 
that  the  officers  might  learn  how  many  men  had  still  to  get 
their  Internment  Orders  ! 

The  missing  man  was  not  found,  and  to  show  the  military 
what  a  complete  failure  had  been  their  plan  to  keep  us  from 
guessing  what  they  wanted,  some  wag  that  evening  chalked 
in  big  letters  on  the  window  beside  the  peep-holes  :  "  If 
you  play  the  game  with  me,  I'll  play  the  game  with  you. 
Got  me  ?  " 

A  short  time  after  this  incident  I  was  much  grieved  at 
the  sudden  breaking-up  of  Hut  n.  It  was  required  for  an 
isolation  hut ;  and  one  evening,  just  before  "  Lock-up " 
the  Scotch  Line  Officer,  whom  we  used  to  call  "  Kiltie," 
ordered  all  the  occupants  to  pack  up  and  remove  to  the  other 
camp,  except  the  Line  Captain,  P.  C.  O'Mahony,  and  another 
prisoner  named  Crowe,  who  were  to  be  quartered  in  one  of 
the  other  huts  on  the  Line,  out  of  which  there  had  been 
releases.  I  wrote  another  doggerel  as  a  lament  for  the 
occasion  to  the  air  of  "  Slievenamon,"  and  the  following 
are  some  of  the  verses  :— 

i. 

Alone,  all  alone,  by  the  barbed  wire  fence, 
And  alone  on  the  football  ground  : 

The  talk  may  be  fine  and  the  playing  superb, 
But  my  heart's  in  the  other  "  compound." 


STBATEGY  101 

Through  the  barbed  wire  it  burst  on  that  black  night 
accurs'd 

When  "  Kiltie  "  his  shrill  whistle  blew, 
And  the  Headquarters  Staff  to  the  East  Compound  passed 

Without  time  e'en  to  bid  us  adieu. 

n. 
No  more — ah,  no  more  !— where  the  "  C  "  huts  stand 

Shall  bold  Hassett  his  views  propound. 
No  longer  amused  by  his  yarns  and  his  views 

Shall  I  wander  the  Camp  around. 
Full  many  a  trick  the  same  Hassett  did  play, 

And  his  satire  was  caustic  and  keen. 
Whoe'er  felt  the  dart  that  his  tongue  could  impart 

Won't  be  sorry  his  heels  to  have  seen. 

ni. 

No  more  Brunnock's  form  shall  this  compound  adorn 

And  Dan  Fraher  no  more  we'll  see, 
While  Mulcahy's  smile  will  no  longer  beguile 

The  heart  of  each  sad  internee. 
For  our  "  polis  "  so  fine  we  will  sigh  and  repine, 

For  the  sergeants  have  gone  with  the  Chief. 
If  a  bowl  disappears  or  a  slander  one  hears, 

Where — ah,  where  !— shall  we  turn  for  relief  ? 

Alone,  all  alone,  by  the  barbed  wire  fence, 

And  alone  by  the  dry  canteen, 
I  walked  in  my  grief  and  I  sighed  for  relief, 

As  I  thought  of  the  days  that  had  been. 
But  comfort  I  found  when  the  news  passed  around, 

And  at  length  it  was  wafted  to  me  : 
Though  the  others  had  fled  as  released  or  like  dead 

That,  at  least,  they  had  left  us  P.C. 


102  *'  ON   MY   KEEPING     — AND  IN   THEIRS 

Alas  !  My  comfort  was  short-lived.  For  P.C.  pined  away 
for  the  companionship  of  his  friends,  and  he  yearned  for 
the  luscious  cakes  that  had  been  wont  to  come  from  the 
girls  of  the  Dungarvan  Cumann  na  mBhan.  We  besought 
him  to  make  his  home  with  us  and  to  remain  still  at  the 
head  of  the  Line  that  he  had  governed  and  led  so  skilfully 
and  well.  But  he  could  not  be  induced  to  stay.  So  he  made 
a  special  application  to  be  allowed  to  follow  his  comrades 
to  the  other  Camp  ;  and  thus  he  passed  out  of  our  lives, 
and  his  name  and  fame  became  but  a  memory  in  the  com- 
pound in  which  he  had  once  been  such  a  notable  figure. 
Sic  transit  gloria  mundi  !  Thenceforth  Captain  Murtagh  was 
our  chief. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

HOME. 

I  had  been  ordered  by  our  Commandant  to  hold  a 
Commission  of  Inquiry  into  allegations  of  ill-treatment 
received  by  prisoners  in  the  Camp  between  the  times  of  their 
arrests  and  their  arrivals  at  Ballykinlar.  In  pursuance  of 
this  order  I  had  taken  a  large  number  of  depositions  from 
men  from  all  parts  of  Ireland  ;  and  I  was  busily  engaged 
in  arranging  these  documents  so  as  to  hand  them,  with 
my  report,  to  Joe  McGrath  on  the  morning  of  Monday, 
the  9th  May,  when  a  sergeant  came  into  my  hut. 

"  Pack  up,  Walsh,"  he  said,  "  and  be  at  the  entrance 
gate  in  ten  minutes." 

Hurriedly  and  joyfully  I  got  my  few  belongings  together, 
shook  hands  with  my  fellow-hutsmen  and  as  many  of  my 
friends  as  had  gathered  to  see  me  off,  and  presented  myself 
at  the  gate. 

All  of  us  who  were  candidates  at  the  elections,  that  were 
then  approaching,  had  made  formal  applications  for 
"  parole  "  in  order  to  be  in  a  position  to  conduct  our  cam- 
paigns ;  and  I  was  not  sure  whether  my  release  was  going 
to  be  on  "  parole  "  or  for  good.  My  mind  was,  however, 
soon  set  at  ease  on  that  point.  For  I  was  at  once  brought 
before  Colonel  Bnnis  and  informed  that  my  release  was 
unconditional. 

Then  I  was  escorted  along  the  outside  of  the  barbed  wire 
to  the  Censor's  office  for  my  railway  voucher.  The  news  of 
my  release  had  by  this  time  spread   through   the  "  cage," 

103 


104  "ON   MY  KEEPING  " — AND   IN   THEIRS 

and  my  late  comrades  were  crowding  along  the  inside  of 
the  fence  to  give  me  a  parting  cheer,  and  to  wish  me  good- 
luck.  It  was  strange  to  feel  myself  once  more  a  free  man. 
But  my  joy  was  tempered  by  sympathy  for  my  brother 
and  the  other  prisoners  who  were  still  in  that  hated  "  cage." 

Then  I  got  my  voucher,  sent  a  wire  home  from  the  Camp 
Post  Office,  and  was  finally  brought  outside  the  Camp  with 
two  other  prisoners.  For  a  few  minutes  we  could  hardly 
realise  our  position.  It  was  wonderfully  thrilling  to  walk 
between  green  hedgerows  ;  and  my  heart  seemed  to  re-echo 
the  joyous  notes  of  the  clear-throated  bird  on  the  tree  above 
us,  that  appeared  to  be  welcoming  us  back  to  life  and 
liberty. 

Was  it  but  a  dream,  or  did  I  really  see  no  barbed  wire 
around  me,  and  were  there  no  bayonets  to  drive  me  before 
them  ?  Our  road  led  to  the  top  of  a  hill ;  and  from  the  summit 
of  it  I  could  see  the  Camp,  with  its  defences  and  patrols 
and  sentries,  and  there  came  to  me  an  acute  comprehension 
of  all  the  pent-up  misery  that  it  held.  I  turned  away,  and 
allowed  my  eyes  to  feast  themselves  on  stately  Slieve 
Donard  and  the  fair  Mountains  of  Mourne  and  the  wavelets 
breaking  on  the  shores  of  Dundrum  Bay  ;  and  from  my 
full  heart  came  the  joyous  cry  : 

"  Lord,  it  is  good  to  be  here  !  " 

My  wife  hurried,  in  response  to  my  wire,  to  meet  me  at 
Belfast ;  and,  as  we  planned  and  talked  about  our  new  life 
in  our  re-united  home,  I  saw  ourselves  as  boy  and  girl  again 
dreaming  those  glad  day-dreams  of  our  radiant  morning. 

Next  evening  I  was  home  and  surrounded  by  the  dearest 
friends,  and  welcomed  by  all  the  kindly  neighbours,  and 
overwhelmed  with  caresses  from  little  ones  that  clambered 
round  my  knees,  with  eyes  shining  like  bright  stars  in  their 
joy,  and  demanded  to  bear  all  about  jail  and  about  the 
"  loldiers  "  and  "  the  bad  peece  men  "  that  had  taken  me 


HOME  105 

away  and  "  the  B'ack  and  Tans."  "  I  told  God  about  them," 
Eilis  said  gravely.  It  was  good  to  live  through  moments 
of  such  exquisite  happiness. 

I  found  it  sweet,  too,  to  get  back  to  my  office  and  to  be 
welcomed  home  by  my  faithful  clients,  especially  those 
who  had  learned  to  look  to  me  for  help  and  guidance  in  all 
their  business  affairs,  and  to  whom  I  had  really  been  of 
service.  The  heartfelt  sympathy  of  my  Unionist  clients 
touched  me  especially.  For  they  could  not  understand  how 
much  sweetness  and  consolation  are  mixed  with  any  suffering 
for  Ireland  that  a  believer  in  her  right  to  freedom  may  be 
called  upon  to  endure. 

"  You  don't  know  how  vexed  I  was,  Mr.  Walsh,"  said 
a  Protestant  and  Unionist  woman  whose  family  and  self 
I  had  helped  through  a  difficulty,  "  and  there  was  more 
than  me  vexed.  For  you  have  no  enemies  among  our 
neighbours,  although  you  may  think  you  have." 

Another  woman  of  the  same  creed  and  politics  gave  me 
as  a  token  of  esteem  and  sympathy  a  gold  half-sovereign 
out  of  her  dead  son's  "  wee  purse  "  which  she  was  keeping 
with  its  contents  as  a  precious  memento  for  her  lonely 
mother  heart  to  cherish. 

And  the  exuberant  joy  that  was  mine  when  I  would  climb 
one  of  our  Derry  hills  and  gaze  with  rapture  on  all  the 
fair  stretch  of  tillage  and  meadow  and  woodland,  watered 
by  winding  streams  and  adorned  with  comfortable  homes, 
that  lay  beneath,  and  drink  in  great  draughts  of  the  fresh, 
pure  air  that  came  to  me  from  the  cloud-topped  mountain 
peaks.  One  has  to  be  deprived  of  these  things  before  one 
can  appreciate  the  bounty  of  God  in  giving  them  to  us. 

When  I  left  Derry  Gaol  I  had  placed  myself  and  my  family 
and  business  in  the  keeping  of  Our  Lady  of  Perpetual 
Succour,  and  I  knew  that  she  would  fulfil  her  trust.  She 
had  brought  me  through  all  the  troubles  up  to  then  with 


106  "  ON   MY  KEEPING  " — AND   IN   THEIBS 

the  minimum  of  suffering  and  loss,  because  I  trusted  in 
her ;  and  I  had  always  the  firm  conviction  that  I  would 
escape  arrest  until  the  struggle  would  be  almost  over. 
Therefore,  when  I  found  myself  in  Ballykinlar  I  believed 
that  the  end  was  nigh,  and  when  I  left  it  I  felt  confident 
that  I  would  never  have  to  endure  imprisonment  again. 
As  I  write  we  have  only  got  the  Truce  ;  but  nothing  will 
convince  me  that  the  Peace  is  not  in  sight — although 
some  further  national  suffering  may  still  be  demanded  of  us. 

Now,  humanly  considered,  I  should  have  been  ruined  by 
my  five  months'  imprisonment.  My  business  was  a  personal 
one,  dependant  on  my  own  exertions  and  conducted  in  all 
essentials  by  myself.  I  had  no  financial  margin  or  resources 
to  cover  such  risks  as  I  was  called  upon  to  face.  But  so 
generously  had  my  Patroness  discharged  her  trust  that 
I  came  back  to  find  my  home  and  business  intact  and  my 
prospects,  if  anything,  improved.  My  clerk,  Frank  Stronge 
— a  brave,  good  young  Irishman,  and  one  of  the  best  and 
most  faithful  of  friends— had  managed  my  business  wonder- 
fully well  in  my  absence  and  shown  a  resourcefulness  and 
capacity  that  were  surprising.  Of  course  I  lost  heavily, 
and  my  bank  account  went  further  to  the  wrong  side. 
But,  with  God's  help,  I  shall  get  over  that.  My  clients  were 
nearly  all  retained  and  new  ones  acquired  ;  and  though  I 
felt  my  memory  slightly  impaired  for  a  time  and  my  brain 
sluggish,  I  left  the  Camp  improved  in  health.  Wherefore 
do  I  feel  bound  to  offer  this  public  expression  of  gratitude 
to  Our  Lady  of  Perpetual  Succour  for  the  way  in  which  she 
protected  me. 

Except  for  the  immediate  financial  loss,  my  imprisonment 
has  been  a  great  gain  to  me.  For  one  thing,  it  gave  me  time 
to  pray  and  lay  up  treasure  against  the  time  of  need.  It 
has  also  taught  me  a  great  deal — amongst  which  is  the 
realisation  of  what  a  priceless  possession  is  a  quiet,  simple 


HOME  107 

home.  I  had,  whilst  in  Ballykinlar,  been  nominated  as 
a  candidate  for  County  Antrim  at  the  election  for  the  new 
Dail.  Though  I  felt  disappointed  on  account  of  the  cause 
that  the  seat  was  lost,  still  it  was  a  source  of  certain  personal 
satisfaction  to  me  that  I  had  not  been  selected  for  a 
constituency  that  was  going  to  be  won.  I  have  had  my 
ambitions  and  my  bright-tinted  dreams,  and,  of  course,  in 
one  way  I  would  have  liked  to  be  a  member  of  the  body 
that  will  set  Ireland  on  ber  new  path  of  peace  and  freedom, 
and  to  have  taken  a  hand  in  the  work  of  reconstruction 
and  national  up-building  that  requires  to  be  done  after  the 
long  centuries  of  war.  But  the  lonely  hours  in  my  little 
cell  in  Derry  Gaol  and  the  heart-hunger  of  those  weary 
months  in  Ballykinlar  have  made  clear  to  me  that  the  good 
God  is  giving  me  much  greater  happiness  than  could  ever 
be  mine  in  public  life. 

I  have  learned,  too,  the  joy  of  simple  tasks.  Sometimes 
I  used  to  weary  of  the  monotony  of  attorneydom  and  the 
daily  drudgery  of  my  office.  Now  when  I  think  of  how  my 
ringers  itched  for  the  touch  of  my  old  typewriter  and  my 
soul  sighed  for  all  the  laugh  and  banter  of  a  country  auction, 
I  know  that,  all  unknown  to  myself,  my  work  has  come  to 
mean  a  great  deal  to  me,  and  that  there  is  a  supreme  joy 
in  feeling  that  one  is  helpful  to  somebody.  It  is  good  to 
feel  that  you  are  trusted,  and  that  there  are  some  who 
will  turn  to  you  with  confidence  in  every  difficulty  that 
confronts  them  on  life's  highway.  And,  then,  the  humour 
that  one  encounters,  and  the  glimpses  that  you  get  into 
people's  inner  lives,  and  all  the  goodness  and  unselfishness 
and  courage  and  nobility  and  faith  of  our  peerless  peasantry 
that  are  so  manifest  to  anyone  who  is  privileged  to  hearken 
to  their  intimate  stories  of  joy  and  sorrow  and  to  plan 
with  them  for  their  betterment  and  to  help  them  through 
difficulties  and  to  sit  by  their  deathbeds.    Truly   a  country 


t08  "  ON   MY   KEEPING  " — AND   IN   THEIRS 

attorney's  life  would  be  a  delightful  one  if  those  hated  things 
"  Costs"  could  be  abolished,  and  one  was  not  under  the 
hideous  necessity  of  taking  money  for  one's  sympathy  and 
good  turns. 

Thus,  then,  do  I  visualise  the  future.  I  see  the  fight 
won — or  almost  won — so  that  politics  are  no  longer  a  duty 
for  such  as  only  wished  to  see  their  country  free.  So  I  step 
back  out  of  the  limelight  and  the  turmoil  and  retire  to  my 
little  "  dug-out  "  amid  those  hills  of  Derry  that  I  love  so 
well ;  and  in  a  home  full  of  love  and  laughter, 
I  glide  down  the  years  with  a  keen  eye  for  all  the 
beauty  and  goodness  and  fun  and  joy  and  sorrow 
in  the  life  around  me,  doing  my  best  for  those  who  entrust 
their  affairs  to  my  keeping  and  winning  the  rich  guerdon 
of  their  confidence  and  gratitude  ;  watching  my  little  ones 
grow  and  develop,  sharing  their  interests  and  superintending 
their  education  ;  reading  the  books  I  love  and  writing  an 
odd  one  myself  in  the  few  hours  of  leisure  that  I  can  snatch 
wherein  I  can  give  scope  to  my  fancy  and  my  dreams  ; 
seeing,  perhaps,  one  of  my  boys  fulfil  in  a  free  Ireland  some 
of  those  boyish  ambitions  that  now,  at  forty,  I  have  to 
put  from  me  for  ever ;  telling  the  children  of  a  newer 
generation,  when  they  come,  thrilling  stories  of  the  great 
fight  for  Freedom  and,  with  the  pardonable  vanity  of  an 
old  man,  exaggerating  my  own  little  part  in  the  struggle 
and  pretending  that  I  really  achieved  and  suffered  some- 
thing ;  saying  my  prayers  and  trying  to  make  some  prepara- 
tion for  the  great  Accounting. 

So,  if  I  live  long  enough,  I  may  in  time  win  for 
myself  that  description  that  an  Ulster  village  only 
bestows  on  one  who  has  secured  for  himself  a  very 
special  place  in  its  affections  and  esteem ;  and  as 
the  neighbours  walk  behind  the  hearse  that  bears  me  to 
the  graveyard  among  the  ash  trees  where  so  many  of  my 


HOME  IO9 

dear  ones  already  sleep  they  may  refer  to  me  as  "  wan  of 
the  good,  oul'  residenters  "  ;  and  somebody  with  a  longer 
memory  than  the  rest  may  even  recall  that  in  the  day  of 
trial  I  was  singled  out  for  persecution  ;  that  if  I  did  not 
do  very  much  that,  at  least,  I  never  lowered  the  flag  ;  and 
pointing  to  the  mountains  of  my  childish  dreams  and  heart's 
desire  he  may  tell  the  eager  listeners,  who  shall  have  only 
read  of  these  turbulent  times  in  which  we  live,  how  once  I 
walked  them  as  a  hunted  man  "  On  my  Keeping." 

LOUIS  J    WAI.SH. 


Feast  of  the  Assumption, 
August  i$th,  1921. 


APPENDIX. 


As  Pat  Agnew  and  myself  are  the  only  two  members  ol 
that  highly  respectable  body  of  men,  the  South  Derry 
solicitors,  that  ever  were  or  are  ever  likely  to  be  in  gaol, 
I  think  it  well  to  link  our  colleagues'  name  with  this  book 
which  records  some  of  our  experiences.  I,  therefore  append 
an  Ode  which  I  addressed  to  them  from  my  little  cell  in  Derry 
Gaol.  For  the  benefit  of  readers  in  Terra  Del  Fuego  and 
other  more  remote  parts  of  the  world  who  may  never  have 
heard  of  the  name  and  fame  of  James  Brown,  one  of  the 
ablest  registration  experts  and  electioneers  in  Ireland,  I 
had  better  explain  that  James  is  the  leading  Orange  solicitor 
in  the  county  and  the  Unionist  organiser  of  victory  in  South 
Derry.  I  may  also  add  for  the  enlightenment  of  those  out- 
siders who  do  not  realise  how  much  fraternisation  goes  on 
between  the  trenches  in  North-Bast  Ulster  that  when  my 
business  was  struck  at  by  the  British  Government,  one  of 
the  first  men  to  offer  my  clerk  his  help  in  keeping  it  going 
was  this  same  violent  political  "enemy,"  the, kindly  and 
genial  James  Brown.  The  ode  was,  of  course,  written  at 
the  time  when  the  newspapers  were  full  of  hints  of  the 
V  Archbishop  Clune  negotiations." 


APPENDIX  III 

An  Ode  to  the  Attorneys  of  South  Derry. 


To  our  learned  attorney  colleagues  of  Coleraine  and 

Magherafelt : 
To  big  Bob  and  Jamie  Brown  and  witty  Sam, 
To  honest  John  and  Harry,  long  Iyiddle  and  the  Moones, 
The  MacLoughlins,  dear  old  Iyeech  and  Cunningham, 
To  the  Andersons  and  Hunter,   Martin,   I^arry,   Hughes, 

O'Kane, 
Willie  Smyth,  and  Warrior  Gault,  and  friend  James  J. : 
From  behind  those  walL  so  splendid,  where  my  "  run  " 

at  last  has  ended 
Pat  Agnew  and  I  send  forth  this  simple  lay. 

ii. 
'Twas  the  Dorset  boys  that  got  us,  and  no  grudge  we  bear 
the  same, 
For  they  did  the  job  with  all  due  courtesie. 
They  told  us  that  poor  "  Tommy  "  has  no  stomach  for 
such  work, 
And  'twere  better  left  to  stolid  R.I.C. 
And  when  we  got  to  Derry  our  escort  was  quite  merry, 

But  sorrowfully  the  sergeant  bade  adieu, 
And  be  said,  "  Your  princely  ration  of  rum  at  Coleraine 
station 
Makes  me  sorry  you're  in  gaol,  my  boul'  Agnew." 

in. 
Agnew's  in  the  Condemned  Cell,  beside  the  gallows  tree, 

Where  he  hunger-strikes  on  three  full  meals  a  day, 
And  I'm  in  Number  Fifteen,  a  little  down  the  line, 

But  near  enough  to  hear  the  fine  display 


112  "  ON   MY  KEEPING  '  — AND   IN   THEIRS 

Of  his  vocal  powers  he  gives  us  each  night  when  lights 
go  out, 

And  he  sings  about  the  dog  from  Lurgan  Town, 
That  from  the  English  champions  did  carry  off  the  Cup, 

And  brought  to  poor  old  Ireland  such  renown. 

IV. 

They  say  that  Lloyd  George  wants  us  to  negotiate  the 
Peace, 

And  that  is  why  he  kindly  brought  us  here. 
"  For  Pat  Agnew  and  Walsh  can  surely  bring  the  Goods," 

He  says  :  and  so  he  likes  to  have  us  near. 
But  I  think  he  is  mistaken  in  the  notion  he  has  taken, 

And  his  judgment  in  the  matter  is  not  soun' — 
If  he  wants  things  settled  right  and  the  contract  watertight 

He  will  also  have  to  send  for  Jamie  Brown. 


Now  gaol's  not  half  a  bad  place,  and  none  of  you  need  fear 

If  the  whirligig  of  Fate  should  bring  you  in. 
For  it's  pleasant  to  be  free  from  the  importunitie 

Of  many  a  greedy  client  wanting  tin. 
Well   supplied   with   Keating's   Powder,   to   keep  off  the 
"  black  and  tans,"* 

You  can  sleep  at  night  as  quiet  as  a  snail ; 
And  the  noise  of  motor  lorry,  your  slumber  need  not  worry  ; 

For,  at  least,  they  can't  arrest  you  while  in  gaol ! 

LOUIS  J.  WALSH. 
Derry  Gaoi,, 

December  igth,  1920. 


*A  polite  gaol  phrase,  to  describe   certain  insects  the  existence  of 
which  good  society  is  supposed  to  ignore. 


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